Cut the noose we have another win!
So it wasn’t as dramatic as that but after throwing away many winning positions this season Ives managed to not do so this time!
Ivanhoe lost the toss and were asked to bowl first, clearly remembering the last time Ives played here Bamville wanted this to be a slow torture! A hungover Woodcock opened the bowling and returned figures of 2 for 23 with R Parnell on the other end after a shaky start tightened it up with figures of 3 for 33! So 5 down inside 16 overs sounds great, but old habits die hard and in these 16 overs Ives managed 3 drops!
Christie and Dancer came on both bowling brilliant spells, Christie was his usual economic self but didn’t recieve the reward his bowling deserved with figures of 8-1-0-22. Dancer on the otherhand continued his brilliant form of late and took 3 wickets, which could have been more but for more poor fielding!
Evans and L Parnell came on to mop up the tail which included a 12 year old, but despite some good bowling only managed 1 wicket between them, with Bamville making what had previously seen an unlikely total of 141, possibly 20 runs higher than Ives would have liked so room for improvement here!
Still opening the batting came Dancer and Evans, both saw off some good opening bowling while keeping up with the run rate. When Dancer fell for to a good caught and bowled in came Bob to settle an already settled ship! With Bob holding down one end Evans set about destroying the rest of the Bamville attack with a brisk 44, obviously in a very rich vein of form!
What followed no one is sure as every spectator fell asleep for a period, but eventually Ivanhoe got there with some good shots from R Parnell for 11, Christie made 7 N.O and Bob the batsman determined as ever to “see the game home” or as we know it as “another not out” making 43NO! So a boring run chase came to and end with the spectators who hadn’t taken to watching paint dry celebrating wildly!
An Ives win, and some positive momentum! This complete with the new before home game training plan could lead to a very good part of the season for the Ives! The simple message being a good 7 wicket win, but still things to work on!