First (Real)game of the 2020 season

After much deliberation and toing and froing from the government we were finally given the green light to play some form of cricket!! Even though we are still awaiting a formal decision from the OCA as to what will come of any form of league cricket (we remain hopeful so fingers crossed).

Covid KCCs new captain for the season, even more out of shape than usual (if that is possible ), Oliver, did the usual thing and called tails, failed at the first hurdle and lost the toss. Despite only having 8 players at the time captain (Sommersbee) immediately elected to have a bowl which should tell you this wicket was likely to have a bit in it. 40 overs were agreed with cup format, 10 overs of fielding restrictions and 8 overs per bowler.

Oliver opened up with Walker and between them they had decided they were going to take things steady as both had a lack of match preparation, shown with Walker removing the labels from his kit whilst walking out to the middle..
Harvey and Turnbull were keeping things tight with Walker looking like he had forgotten how to hit a ball! , taking a few in the chest followed by the next in the same spot passing his shins, not getting off the mark until the 6th over most unlike Walker (Ask Broughton if in doubt).
Following this over we took our first sanitation / refreshment break.
Wantage were now up to the full 11 players and Oliver was feeling a little under pressure. Harvey served up a juicy half volley and Oliver's eyes lit up. Rather than dispatching the ball to the boundary Oliver only managed to sky the ball high above the fielders head. Oliver had a slight moment where he thought he was safe as Wong had decided it was his catch to take (those that played in the previous years fixture know that Wong prefers to use different parts of his body to stop the ball rather than his hands). The ball fell nicely into Wong's hands who duly decided to juggle the ball whilst taking a backwards stumble. Oliver saw the ball bobble out of Wong's hands as he headed towards the deck backwards and the ball looked to be heading to ground. However Wong somehow managed to kick the ball skywards over his head for the ball to then be caught by a more competent pair of hands. Oliver sloped off with the score on 29.
Woods joined Walker in the middle sporting his lock down surfers haircut and not surprisingly got off the mark with a 2 that was guided down to third man. By now Walker had started to feel more comfortable in his new Equipment and had started to find the middle of the bat and had dispatched a few to the boundary, Walker being the main aggressor saw another 39 runs added to the total before woods guided a lofted ball to the waiting hands of Mercer at backward point, which saw woods depart for 7. Behal batting at 4 didn't trouble the scorers unfortunately , but his match was far from done!
Stothard who was first to use the new net booking facility showed similar form to what was shared on the whats App group from earlier in the day departing for a miserly 1 run. Clarke was next to join Walker who had now started to really get going and was regularly finding the boundary ( 7, 4's and 9, 6's to be precise). Clarke and Walker enjoyed a nice partnership adding a further 36 runs before Clarke departed for 6 having had in his words "his best ever start to a cricket season".
Ramzan joined Walker but lasted 2 balls and Tippett not much longer. followed having just hit a 4 following it with a lofted shot to the exact same spot where the fielder had just been placed.
Kalyan batting at 9 also failed to trouble the scorers but was present whilst Walker bought up his ton having been on 99 for 21 balls, unfortunately his luck ran out having been dropped early on in his innings was finally caught for an impressive 101 from Turnbulls doblers, having just telling our square leg umpire (Jamie ) that he was going to take the bowler for 36 this over, dollies one up first ball
with the score now on 160 and 5 overs remaining. Graham (the best net batter in the club, and J Oliver set about seeing the remaining overs off. Graham taking the lead hit some fabulous shots and both he and Oliver ran superbly putting on a further 31 for the final wicket. Graham taking the lion share to finish 3rd top scorer with a fabulous 27* only slightly behind the extras at 32 . leaving the visitors with a respectable total of 191.
teas were taken outside with the players bringing there own, unusually no complaints were made ! maybe this is the future of our sport :)

now was our chance to see what delights the deck would throw up, and Ramzan got us off to the perfect start dismissing the dangerous Sommersbee in the first over with a lovely in-swinging yorker which deceived Sommersbee for the second time in as many balls although this one hitting the wicket . Tipper was opening from the other end and was also looking to keep things tight.
Ramzan got his second wicket in his second over having the junior Turnbull caught emphatically at second slip by the falling Graham.
The fall of this wicket bought together the solid partnership of Mercer and Spencer who both looked to score from anything loose, and were going along quite nicely above the required run rate.
The first bowing changes took place and Kalyan and Graham took over from Tippett and Ramzan both having bowled 5 good overs.
Kalyan and Gragham both bowled well with Graham nearly taking the wicket of now settled Spencer only for the chance to be dropped by the disappointed Ramazan. Both bowlers were tidy but other than that chance the batsmen didn't give any further chances through those 10 overs, this bought about the match defining changes (for very different reasons) with Behal and Oliver J joining the attack.
Behal started with a maiden , which was 1 of 6 he bowled in his allotted 8 overs, with 3 of those being wicket or double wicket maidens. At the opposite end of the scale Oliver who hadn't picked up a ball since the January Nets went for 6 from his first ball, this was his only legal delivery and unfortunately for him he just couldn't find the deck and went for 18 runs off his 0.1 overs with all the subsequent free hits also being called no balls . Oliver super senior had a word with senior Oliver who had to remove Junior Oliver for dangerous bowling. Oliver senior looked to bowl the remaining 5 balls of the over hoping he may actually be able to use the facilities having not bowled himself for some time, it was in these remaining 5 balls where the game swung back in kidlington's favour. With Oliver bowling Spencer with his second delivery, Behal then bowled Mercer the following over and we were right back in it with 2 new batsmen at the crease. Having got the wicket Oliver made the rash decision to keep bowling and despite the best efforts from the batsmen Oliver and Behal kept things tight mainly thanks to some fantastic fielding from the youngsters in the field, in particular Clarke who was immense with throwing himself all over the place. With Oliver taking 1 more wicket in his 5.5 overs, replaced by Ramzan who started where he left off picking up a wicket. With his first ball Ramzan finished with great figures of 7 overs 3 maidens 11 runs with 3 wickets. Behal continued to keep things tight and picked up valuable wickets at the same time finishing with match wining figures of 8 overs 6 maidens 5 runs with 4 wickets. Graham replaced Behal from the far end and on his 5th ball of his 6th over managed to find the edge of Hain's bat and the ball looped nicely into the falling Walkers gloves to finish off the wantage inning on 148
It was fantastic to be back on the field and we need to thank Wantage who had managed to put things in place to help us all remain safe and most importantly managed to facilitate the return of cricket.