On what has become the norm for this summer, a windy, wet day, Ivanhoe CC looked to avenge the comprehensive beating they had been given by Bamville CC the previous year. Woodcock and Parnell opened the bowling, after keeping it tight in the opening overs, Ivanhoe had Bamville with less than 50 runs coming in the first 16 overs for 2 wickets. However from then on, Ivanhoes game changes completely. Sloppy errors in the field, combined with Lazy fielding Ivanhoe let Bamville build up an important partnership, with quick singles a plenty due to some lack lustre fielding.
The partnership was broken when Skip putting himself on to bowl, opened with a magic delivery which managed to stay just low enough to not be called a no ball, but a wicket none the less. This was then followed up by some excellent bowling by the Skip providing him with the rewards of a 5 wicket haul. Evans kept it tight from the top end, and his accurate bowling helped to keep the score lower than what was once threatened. However Bamvilles innings was consistently helped by a poor Ivanhoe attitude in the field, which gave Bamville a total of 173 for 7.
The task of chasing down this total was opened by Dancer and Evans, who put on a brilliant opening partnership of 101, ending with Dancer on 41 and Evans 58. Evans then got out at 61, continuing the brilliant form he has shown all season. Having set Ivanhoe up with the hopes of victory, there was little help from the rest of the team as although R Parnell and Kenchington made a good start, both could not deliver the big score that the victory would require, so with an ever increasing run rate Ives fell agonisingly 11 runs short of a victory all out for 163.
Some may say that more passion was shown in the pub discussing the game and what went wrong, than what had been put into the game, with different criticisms ranging from needing better players to the need for improvement from the players on the day. It can be looked at the scoring 163, better than 4 an over is a very positive step by Ives and shows a big improvement. Personally I felt that we let this game slip away, as from two positive positions we failed to deliver when we should have, with a mixture of poor fielding and slow run rates combining to deliver defeat.
It has been decided that before each home games, the players should arrive one hour early to work on batting and fielding. There is no quick fix going to come, and no Matt Martin about to paper over the cracks in our batting line up. The solution has to come from within. Chris Baddeley is a prime example of someone who has put the effort into his game, and is reaping the rewards, if we could all do this, Match reports would be a lot more positive, and the game more enjoyable. However talk is cheap, so it will be interesting to see if Ivanhoe practice before games, and if this makes a difference.
Ivanhoe have the chance to avenge the loss next week, so hopefully this is a different story!