SoA v St Edward’s Martyrs – 11 July 2014 – Lost by 6 wickets

Friday 11 July Stragglers of Asia vs St Edward’s Martyrs

Result: Lost by 6 wickets

Team Batting First: Stragglers of Asia

Team Batting Second: St Edwards Martyrs

Report: After two months of intensive recruiting the match manager had assembled a Stragglers side brimming with experience and tactical acumen balanced by a dash of youthful vigour. There were only two problems. The first was that the side consisted of only 8 rather than the traditional 11, and the dash of vigour was heavily outnumbered by the grey hair and creaking limbs of the rest of the team. The second was the dark clouds and steady rain that seemed to get heavier as the players inched their way up the M40 towards Oxford. However, help was on hand as the Martyrs were able to recruit three players for us adding some much needed agility to the side while the enormous, high tech covers at St Edward’s School covering the entire square meant that play was only delayed by half an hour which allowed most of the Stragglers caught in bad traffic time to arrive before the start of play. Buoyed by these strokes of good fortune and the sight of a hard, flat wicket, the skipper won the toss and elected to bat. However, doubts started to surface almost immediately after when on shaking hands after electing the bat, his opposing skipper (who after all had been playing at the ground all week) blithely announced that he would have inserted us anyway. The reason for this soon became clear as the St Edward’s opening bowlers made run scoring difficult with both bowling a steady length and getting a good amount of swing through the air and off the pitch accounted for both openers in short order; Akeel Fox, a promising player from St Kitts who is playing for Stoney Stratford as an overseas pro, recruited for us by the Martyrs, feathered an outswinger to the wicket keeper just as he was looking as he had played himself in and an over later Joe Cavanagh was castled by a delivery that swung in. Guest Matt Luxford and Tony Hooper duly began the regrouping opting for patient accumulation rather than all out counter-attack inching the Stragglers to 65-2 before Tony was beaten in the flight by a 14 year old leg spinner and bowled as the Stragglers straggled into lunch at 76-3. Fortified by a good lunch (and the wine thoughtfully provided by our hosts) Luxford and Ian Salter decided to attack the bowling and the score moved rapidly to 130 before Ian was well taken at point for 25. However, by this time, Matt had already passed his half century and had the bit well and truly between his teeth and in James Edward’s found a batting partner who was equally inclined to take the fight to the bowling as the pair added 78 in 12 overs before Matt, undone more by fatigue than by the bowling, missed a heave across the line to a flighted delivery from Swainson to be given out LBW for a magnificent 85. The loss of two further wickets – both the result of a selfless pursuit of quick runs to allow a declaration – and the approach of more rain meant that the Stragglers innings closed on 213 for 7 with James stranded on 49 not out. Although the rain prompted an early tea, the excellent covers again did their job and play was able to resume shortly after tea with the pitch unscathed to the dismay of the Stragglers spinners who had seen the pitch only get better for batting as our innings had progressed. However, in Akeel Fox, we did at least have one seam bowler and it was he who made the initial inroads taking the first three wickets to reduce the Martyrs to 45-3. However, Ward and Simon both soon settled in and without a second seamer to put pressure on them from the other end and exploiting the lack of agility amongst the Stragglers fielders both began to score freely against the spin attack putting on 137 for the fourth wicket until Simon was sucker punched by a Joe Cavanagh full toss which he smashed to Ian Salter at deep mid-on shortly after the start of the final hour. Although his departure caused the Martyrs scoring to slow, by then it was too late to alter the inevitable outcome as Ward hit the winning runs to finish the match (like his Stragglers counterpart at number 3) on 85.