Scorecard

Haverhill II v Eight Ash Green Cricket Club Two Counties 1st XI (Saturday) on Sat 10 Aug 2024 at 1pm
Eight Ash Green Cricket Club Lost by 1 wicket

Match report As I sit at my desk on a Friday evening, being confronted by the scorecard of a match I would rather not dwell on, I find myself asking “why am I doing this?”. Having considered the possible reasons which included giving a fair account of the season, whilst providing our extensive readership (wishful thinking?) with an entertaining recap of the previous week’s events, for this particular fixture I have landed on the following: to confront the disappointment and use this as an opportunity to reflect on what went wrong, and learn how we can avoid that in future weeks.

Matchday 17, our 11th playable fixture of the year, saw The Green on another jaunt through Suffolk, this time with Haverhill as our destination. Looking to bounce back from the loss to Bardwell the previous week, we arrived at the ground ahead of our hosts, with Daryl Sleeman undoing the main gate and letting us onto the outfield for a quick preview of the wicket. After struggling to determine which pitch we would be on, the Haverhill players began to arrive, bringing with them a surprise tea (with more information on this arriving later). With the changing rooms open, we began our warmup despite the absence of the man usually charged with getting us going, Rob Lewis. Daryl’s narrow 5-a-side pitch made for an interesting 10 minutes of football, with the ball zipping around but not often ending up between the two goal cones set up at either end. We then moved into our ground fielding and catching drills, looking to ensure we were ready to go and put pressure on the opposition batters when the time came. With the Haverhill Captain for the day Liam Savage, who had dropped down into the 2nd team, who were playing at home, due to childcare availability, calling Green skipper Joe Young into the middle, Joe proved his previous coin-toss win was a fluke, calling incorrectly and being put into bat first. This was a relatively unfamiliar position for us to find ourselves in, having only batted first once this season up until then.

Vice-Captain Daryl, who had raised an interest in potentially opening for the 1st Xi, made up the other half of our opening pair, with mainstay Steve Nunn leading his partner into the middle. The two batters started tentatively, against a bowling attack which looked to be attackable but were making the most of the early conditions. Daryl managed to restrain himself for almost 5 overs, before heaving a maximum and getting himself right into the contest. Steve, broken bat in tow, had also started to get into the groove, putting bad balls away and ticking over the strike at regular intervals. After putting on 55 in their second outing as an opening pair, they both looked in the mood to up the rate and go big. However, this newfound level of comfort may have led to Haverhill’s breakthrough, with Steve chasing a legside ball in pursuit of a fourth boundary, but finding the wicket keepers gloves instead of the rope. Stuart Hammond came out to meet Daryl, but was unfortunately on his way back the very next over, thanks to an attempted sweep ricocheting off his wrist, into the ground and onto the stumps (although how the ball had enough pace to knock the bail off is still a mystery). Alastair Hammond came in at 4, and Daryl seemed to just continue as if nothing was happening around him, still smoking the ball to the boundary at regular intervals and now running well between the wickets. In a moment that, I imagine, still haunts him almost a week later, Daryl’s fine start came to an abrupt halt. Trying to hit Towers out of the attack, Daryl attempted to pump him into the car park over the long on boundary. This was a touch too close to the young man fielding there, who took a step to his right before clinging onto a very good catch. Whilst it isn’t the catch you expect to see taken at this level week in, week out, it is always a possibility, and Daryl was the first to admit that he should have cleared the man, put it out of his reach, or put the shot away.

Joe sprinted out to the middle, but with Ali falling two balls later, and the score now a precarious 75/4, the risk of another collapse loomed large. Joe and new batting partner Alex Hammond set about rebuilding, with the Captain looking to drop and run into the plethora of gaps left by the Haverhill ring fielders. Alex battled to protect his wicket, putting away a few loose deliveries before trying to sweep a full toss and missing, leaving Steve absolutely no choice other than to raise his finger and send Alex back up the pavilion stairs. Our 2nd Xi Captain, Matt Murray, made the most of a bye-week for the 2’s and travelled with the 1’s to Haverhill, and now found himself thrust into the action and with only 12 overs remaining in our innings, and only 119 runs on the board, it was vital that he stick around and build a partnership with Joe. As Joe started to score more freely, the total began to build, and we edged our way closer to what we hoped would be a defendable score. Savage had Matt caught behind, chasing a wide one in an attempt to up the scoring rate, and it was left to Jonathan Purser and Joe to finish the innings. The Captain passed fifty and started to play his shots, the highlight being a step across to outside off stump, before sending the ball sailing high over the square leg boundary to the top of the hill. A lowlight was a run of 3 balls, each of which he attempted to ramp or lap. Whilst this wasn’t the pitch for shots which required there to be any pace on the ball, Joe attempted to outthink the bowler, but essentially outthought himself. JP and Joe came off at the end of the 45th over having added 36 from the last 30 balls, meaning we had set Haverhill a target of 193.

We were not expecting to receive a tea, with the default position being that there is no tea unless otherwise specified, but it is always a welcome surprise. The tea Haverhill put on was a Smörgåsbord of treats, from slices of pizza to sausage rolls. It would be remiss of me to not mention the sweet platter and the blondies. More than satisfied with our mid-match feast, we quickly refocussed our attention to the task at hand, defending a score which was, arguably, 25 runs short of a real winning score and more than 50 short of where we should have been.

Nitya Patel, who has been bowling very well for the 2nd team, opened up with JP, and quickly showed why there is a fair amount of clamour surrounding his potential, taking two wickets in his second over despite suffering from the effects of shin splints. The outlook of the game changed in the sixth over, with the score at 13/2. JP, bowling to a batter who had repeatedly told us how tired he was and who, the ball before, had edged a ball so close to the stumps that they were no more than an additional sponsors sticker away from being rattled, hit JP for the biggest 6 we have witnessed in recent times. A length ball on the stumps, Haverhill’s Jackson swatted across the line, the ball travelling over the short legside boundary by such a distance that it managed to clear the tall tree on top of the hill whilst still on the way up. We were, unsurprisingly, unable to find that ball (some say it may now be orbiting the earth whilst being studied by NASA), and Joe trundled off to find a replacement for a five over old ball, something that no captain has to hand. After a brief discussion with the Haverhill captain, Joe returned with a second new ball. Jackson, invigorated and awoken from his daze by that shot, set about swinging at absolutely everything with every fibre of his being. His 15 ball knock yielded him 26 vital runs, before Steve was brought on and cleaned him up first ball, bringing about an end to what would have been an entertaining knock to watch (if you were not in an Eight Ash Green shirt). Henry Warner, replacing JP at the Pavilion end, took our fourth wicket, a smart low catch by Nitya, fielding at first slip due to the aforementioned shin splints. The ball burst through his hands, into his midriff, before he managed to cling on between his ankles… a straightforward catch made to look very impressive.

Haverhill captain, Savage, and number 6 batter Brailey began to attempt to take the game away from the Green, limiting opportunities for the fielding side and ruthlessly dispatching the many bad balls served up to them. This was probably the story of the fielding innings, too many loose deliveries, most of which were punished by the two senior Haverhill batters. Steve had two enormous LBW appeals turned down against Savage. Both looked very out from behind the stumps, with Steve being particularly frustrated that the second one hadn’t been give. After putting on 50 together, a quicker ball from Matt deceived Brailey, bowling him and creating an opening for the Green to pounce. We were not able to do so, another 50 partnership between the captain and their young wicket keeper dragged them ever closer to the line. Stuart had been drying up the runs at the Pavilion end after replacing Henry, going for 5 runs from his first 5 overs. However, Savage decided to target Stu’s sixth over, depositing him over the short boundary 3 times in an over in a real show of intent. A quick flurry of four wickets for only 15 runs gave us a sniff of victory, seemingly from the jaws of defeat. Steve picked up his second for the day, and Nitya two more, as well as finishing off a good bit of fielding by JP to enact a run out. Haverhill were 176/9, requiring 17 more runs, but with just one wicket remaining. Unfortunately, the Haverhill pair didn’t offer us another real wicket taking opportunity. Daryl’s quick pick up and throw was received by Joe, who’s sharp hands attempted to run out his opposite number. In what must have been a very, very close call (so close, in fact, Ethan Frost who was stood on the line at point decided to express how he felt about that decision, much to the chagrin of the Haverhill skipper), the home umpire shook his head, and the next over, Savage hit three consecutive boundaries to seal the victory. The Green trudged off, disconsolate, and headed upstairs to dissect just where it had gone so wrong out there.

At the time, it was fair to highlight how loose bowling and a lack of awareness and alertness in the field may have cost us the win, however, looking back almost a week later it was every facet of the game that let us down. We put nowhere near enough runs on the board against a bowling attack that we should have been able to punish. We didn’t bowl tight enough and gave the Haverhill batters too many opportunities for easy runs, and in the field, we just weren’t sharp enough. All in all, with those struggles in each area, it is clear to see how we lost last weekend. It is only fair, however, to mention Nitya’s impressive performance of 4/36 with the ball. We look forward to seeing what he does in the remainder of the season!

As mentioned in my introduction, I wanted to use this match report as an opportunity to reflect on what went wrong, and learn how we can avoid that in future weeks. As just detailed, improving on the basics is going to be vital moving forwards. We also mentioned in the changing room after that we need players to take a game by the scruff of the neck, and to essentially say “I am going to win this game for us”. Responsibility is going to be a key word for the rest of the season, and for 2025. Make that match winning score, take that catch, tie down an end, stop that single. Take responsibility for what you can control and go out each week looking to be the person to win the game for the Green. It may not come off every week, but if we have 11 players out there with that attitude, I’d bank on us every single time. Big fixture tomorrow against Hadleigh. As always, we go again, together! Up The Green!

Eight Ash Green Cricket Club Two Counties 1st XI (Saturday) Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
6w 2b 1lb 
for 6 wickets
9
193		        
Steve Nunn ct A Ford b J Brailey 27 38 3 71.05
Daryl Sleeman ct R Pector-Hird b M Towers 40 63 5 1 63.49
Stuart Hammond b M Towers 1 7 14.29
Alastair Hammond ct A Ford b H Alexander 4 8 50.0
Joe Young Not Out  66 77 6 1 85.71
Alex Hammond lbw K Bourke 25 45 4 55.56
Matt Murray ct A Ford b L Savage 11 23 1 47.83
Jonathan Purser Not Out  10 9 1 111.11
Nitya Patel   2
Ethan Frost  
Henry Warner   1

Haverhill II Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Simon Hird8.004300.005.37
Liam Savage9.0043143.004.78
Josh Brailey7.0022122.003.14
Martin Towers9.0042221.004.67
Hayden Alexander6.0018118.003.00
Kieran Bourke6.0022122.003.67

Haverhill II Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
2w 5b 3lb 
for 9 wickets
10
197 (43.4 overs)		     
Arvid Gundersen ct N Patel b H Warner 17 45 2 37.78
Oliver Singleton ct H Warner b N Patel 4 7 1 57.14
Kieran Bourke b N Patel 0 3 0
Joe Jackson b S Nunn 26 15 3 2 173.33
Liam Savage Not Out  81 103 6 5 78.64
Josh Brailey b M Murray 42 34 10 123.53
Alfie Ford b S Nunn 12 36 33.33
Riley Pector-Hird ct N Patel b N Patel 4 8 1 50.0
Simon Hird run out  (J Purser) 1 5 20.0
Martin Towers lbw N Patel 0 2 0
Hayden Alexander Not Out  0 4 0

Eight Ash Green Cricket Club Two Counties 1st XI (Saturday) Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Nitya Patel8.413649.004.15
Jonathan Purser4.012800.007.00
Steve Nunn9.0137218.504.11
Henry Warner9.0230130.003.33
Matt Murray7.0032132.004.57
Stuart Hammond6.022600.004.33