Milnerton Results

Then there was light…NOT an Eskom story!

James — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:07:23 +0000

What do you say or do when things have been going pear for so long that you don’t even know what an apple taste like? I suppose, judging from personal experience, you make do with as much apples as you can get your hands on, make apple juice, apple pie, baked apples with custard and for good measure stuff your face with some Granny Smiths too!!

For those who have been following this blog for some time now will be excused for thinking that the ol’ Vlam has finally lost it. But I am here to tell you… “Oh contraire my friends”!! We WON!

Admittedly, it was not the strongest side we played against this season. And yes, I admit, it was not a high scoring affair. But that is where I will most certainly stop any nitpicking! Upon analysis a few things become apparent.

1 There was a lot less chatter and a lot more batter…(o dear God, thank you for my writing skills, but some poetry skills would have been nice too!). We chased the 130 needed down with 9 overs to spare and with only 4 willow wielders back in the hut. Yes, Wayne, I finally admit that Wray’s departure did not leave such a big hole in our batting after all. But please do not discount the fact that after his departure everyone seemed to have realized that there is one less get-out-of-jail-free card in the side now and more responsible batting from all and sundry would be required to win games.

2 Our bowling was top notch. There was not one bowler on Saturday that did not contribute to the cause. All figures look good, with the exception of a certain Mr K (name withheld as to ensure that hatemail do not cross the electrospace into his mailbox). It would be reasonable to expect, in future Mr K, that in the death of an innings the easiest shots in the book to play is a hoik into the onside. Then you do not need bowling from wicket to wicket, and more to the point, balls aimed at middle. A foot or two outside off with 6 fielders waiting to gobble up errand shots on a day where no catches were dropped would have worked better. In his defense, he was asked to bowl something other than what he is used to…

3 Yes, you read correctly…we held ALL our cathes. One handers, running two handers, skiers, flat ones, and TWO stumpings for God’s sake…WHEN LAST DID WE HAVE 2 STUMPINGS IN AN INNINGS…IN THE WHOLE CLUB?? Sharp stuff Mr Keulder!

The beer went down well, the banter back at club was a lot less gloomy and there will no doubt be more faces at practice this week. Lets push on to another victory now.

Special mention to Rick that scored a good 40 odd opening the innings. Again our openers did not fail. Keep it up boys. I am proud as hell today!

How to lose a match - 101 ways in which to do it!

James — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:22:42 +0000

Sounds like a pretty pessimistic view on approaching a cricket match, but unfortunately we have pretty much perfected the art of losing games, rather than our opposition beating us.

Victoria won the toss and sent us in to bat. A decision that had me in two minds as I would have batted first if I won the toss anyway, but, unknowing to some of my team mates, against what I believed we should have done…field first.

We started, again, like a house on fire with Groenewald and Kamfer putting on another great opening partnership of 70 plus. If anything can be said about our batting this season, is that we have been very consistent in runs posted and also opening or top order partnerships.

Then a dubious decision followed. With a “chunk” of daylight separating the bat from the ball the umpire raises his finger to once again inflict further damage to my own batting average…so what was once a wondrous average of 55 plummeted to 30 odd in the space of a few games…

Anyway, nuff bout me! We managed to get to 175/8 in our allotted 40 overs and started making inroads into the Victorian batting lineup. When we had them 80 odd for 7, some premature champagne corks started to pop and it was difficult to keep the players focused on the task at hand. Some agricultural hoiks over midwicket and some viciously unorthodox slaps through the offside later and we are trying our all to get rid of these two seemingly hopeless batting cases that just does not want to fold under pressure!

In the end we lost with 1.1 overs remaining. By one wicket!

I am still drinking my bathwater since Saturday night. And it won’t stop soon either. At least it’s leaving a better taste in my mouth than the almost sweet turned sour champagne taste that lingered earlier…

Lessons…gone with league win aspirations

James — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:22:14 +0000

I am still smarting after last week’s loss against Peninsula .

Our side has had a tough time of late. When not done in by substandard pitches, we were done in by the opposition not arriving or just the complete non-availability of a pitch! Last mentioned costing our side a valuable 10 points. Many accusations could be slung back and forth for the state our side is in at the moment, but in the long run I suppose the only people that can really do anything to turn our fortunes around is ourselves.

Face it boys…we were looking at last weeks’ game as if to say “win or lose, I am just glad to be on a field again”. In many respects I fell prey to that exact mentality. It is commendable, yes, but that attitude rarely ever delivers winning cricket.

As if exterior circumstances did not do enough to cripple our spirits over the last month or so, three of our regular players upped and left us in the proverbial lurch.

Wray, my friend, I and the team will miss you greatly in your sudden retirement! Frans packed and moved to Potch and Jacques decided that the traveling into Millies every week is too much to handle after he moved to Bellville.

So, with a depleted side in many ways, and a strengthened one in others, we set off for the game against Peninsula . We won the toss, chose to bat on a concrete slab (I never use the term “mat”, concrete slab sounds about as artificial as you need to describe the surface).

We had a good start with a solid 70 odd run partnership at 4.5 runs per over. Then the wheels came off…losing 4 wickets for 20 runs, including our import from Namibia, Vernon that missed out on a spot in the 2^nd side. Then Rick, Wayne and the Banker (Another Vernon, only 30 years older) steered us to a good total of 177/5 in our 40 overs. Now let me please stress the fact that you should win more games than lose with that score.

Bowlers unite. We ended up bowling the biggest load of doodoo you can imagine at their batsmen. Yes, the track was like a runway for bowlers with balls inadvertently traveling very quickly in the opposite direction it’s been delivered from, but they still managed to bowl properly and restrict us to 177. We HAD the bowlers to do the same. Yet we handed them the game in 27.3 overs.

Lesson learned. Now move on.

Some days retirement do not sound that bad, Wray…

Anywhere but here…

James — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 07:48:38 +0000

In my last match report the general question I asked throughout was "where do we go from here?"

Well...It seems that "anywhere but here" would have been an appropriate answer.

We took on Bellville on Saturday and we all knew it would be a tough game, just how tough would become evident very soon.

The visiting captain confirmed with me earlier in the week that the starting time for the game would be 13h00, instead of the regular 13h45. I had no problem with his request as it would have taken the bad light out of the game completely with a scheduled finish at around 18h30.

So we arrive at the field and the captain (and this is where everyone reading this must excuse me) comes over with such an arrogance to discuss the pitch and the toss. Admittedly, yes, they have been unbeaten thus far this year and yes, they do have some bragging rights as they did nail our proverbial arses to the wall last year, but I am sorry, in all my cricket playing years I have played against much better opposition that displayed a lot more humility than he did. And you, as the reader, will understand why we all felt we achieved some moral victory on Saturday purely as that arrogance on display made it easier to crack a smile at the unfortunate circumstances that unfolded.

We won the toss and I decided to have a bat (pretty much a premeditated decision as we were waiting on a team mate, and knowing what happened last year - 170 runs in 20 overs - I was not prepared to take the risk of fielding with ten men). So...Mr Kamfer and Bryan Fulton out to the middle and low and behold, ANOTHER shocker of a pitch!!

At this point I have to ask everyone to excuse me once again. The fields we play on are not supplied to us free of charge. We PAY to PLAY on those fields. Why do we need to pay to play on an unprepared pitch? It is sickening! And a pitch like that could have been deadly...I am not the quickest bowler in the league, and I tell you all, if those balls I bowled at that guy, without the helmet, was bowled marginally quicker, he could have been hit in the head!! Freaky balls that should not even have bounced half as high as it did. Then in other places balls kept so low it nearly broke the batsmen's ankles.

So we manage to scrape 73 runs together (and I don't think there was one batsmen that did not wear a few balls like christmas decorations). Our initial estimate of 140 to be a good score soon changed to 120, then 100 and then 80...we were very happy to get to 73 as we knew we were in with a big shout if we can get early wickets.

And then the arrogance once again...

I opened the bowling with the strong wind in my back and removed the opening bat the fourth ball I bowled. I found the way he got bowled to be very odd for a top order bat and when I saw the number three and four batsmen play the same peculiar cricket it dawned on me that the captain of Bellville must have reversed his batting order around. Without saying it out loud I felt that he handed us a huge slap in the face and also, potentially, put all the pressure back on them.

We had them under huge pressure when they were 40/7, but my overs, and that of Keulder, was drying up quickly. I know you can always turn to Wayne when the pressure is on, but whom do you bowl into that strong wind?

In the end we managed to squeeze a draw out of the game. And right there, in that draw, is the moral victory.

The good out of the game?

1       5 points for the draw against an unbeaten Bellville side.
2       We displayed disciplined bowling, and in all fairness to anyone bowling on the day, it was tough.
3       Our tail wagged, for the first time this year edges and hoiks seemed to go our way!
4       The "horse" is back.
5       We are a good team that can take it as good as we can give it (keep up the chirps Wray, I will organize a hitman to take out the hitman they will be sending for you)
6       George Kamfer, jou beaut!!! What a catch at silly mid off! There is not many guys in ANY form of cricket that would have held on to that one (I don’t care if that catch was taken purely out of self-preservation of the face). It was a tracer bullet and you held on!

The bad?

1       We still gave away a bit too many extras.
2       A few chances went begging (admittedly Bryan's would gave been a sharp catch and Chris' drop cost no runs off the last wicket)
3       5 points for the draw against an unbeaten Bellville side (I would have enjoyed the bragging rights for the next year)

All in all, maybe 5 points from a game we COULD have lost, COULD have won... it's better than nothing.
And it sets us up nicely for our next game on 9 December 2007.
Let's take this one to Mannenberg boys!!

Stats post Game 5

James — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:58:32 +0000

Here we go, brand new updated stats - season post game 5!

Enjoy.

PS…does not look like the image upload system works properly today, so go have a look in the albums section…

Edgemead…found the sharp edge of the knife here…

James — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 08:30:44 +0000

I was seriously out of it for a few days now because of flu (or a bad cold, sometimes can’t tell the difference when it gets that bad). So my match report of last Saturday’s game is very late in comparison to others. The silver lining to the dark cloud though is that it gave me a proper chance to evaluate our performance on Saturday and maybe outline a few problem areas to work on without becoming too critical.

We fielded first on another bad pitch. Our players tend to get too critical about our own facilities at our club when the situation out there is pretty much a lot worse. Edgemead tried their best to accommodate us with a field and I can not believe for a second that they would have willingly chosen that field as the venue if they knew what a state that pitch was in!

There were craters the size of a mans fist on the end. It was barely rolled and compacted which made this pitch a bowler’s paradise. We fielded first and thought we did a good job restricting them to 106 all out with none of their batsmen progressing past 17 runs individually. We had a good keeper in Justin Broker and would have loved to see him back in the fray for this week’s game, but unfortunately he can’t make it.

The fact that the only real extras on a bad up-and-down pitch came of the odd bye and wide when the Edgemead bowling performance had soooooo many 2’s and 3’s in extras is a good yardstick to use to compare our fielding performance to theirs.

Our batting though let us down.

We got bowled out for 92! Wray dug in and managed a flashy 41, which included a couple of huge sixes over square leg, but not after he got pinned by a few nasty laterally moving balls in the stomach and groin area! Then the rest of our batsmen did not take into account the nature of the pitch and tried in vein to play as normally as possible and lost their wickets in the process in a spectacular fashion, handing the opening bowler of Edgemead the distinguished figures of 4/10 in 8 overs.

We had some highlights in the bowling department as well. Wayne “Horse Chestnut” Beukes finally hit his straps and managed to get figures of 2/6 in 5 overs, Wray managed 2/0 in three balls (well done big guy) and Bryan Fulton managed 2/20 in 8 overs.

Where do we go from here? I sincerely do not know. Bellville next on Saturday at Bosmansdam where we had a good 8 wicket win about a month ago. Lets hope the field treats us as good as it did then because God knows we need some luck now…

Stats - post Game 4

James — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:09:06 +0000

Herewith updated stats as it stands at after game 4. Our chances of winning this league has been dealt a critical blow, but with so many teams trying to do the same, we need to keep plugging away guys...heads up, shoulders back, and let's raise some hell.

Players checking out the stats and reports can feel free to leave some comments as well. Email me some match pics and I can post them on here. This blog is as much yours as its mine.

Batting stats

Bowling stats

Floored…would have been better if it was a clean floor…

James — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:19:33 +0000

Not good.

They say golf is a great leveler….try cricket on for size!!

Rylands won the toss and decided to bat first on a concrete slab! They were off to a flyer and with the exception of myself and George Cilliers the rest of the bowling lineup got worked over quite horribly.

Player umpires just don’t work. Annie, our scorer, told us after our bowling stint that the opposing players were boasting about the fact that there were plenty of decisions they were supposed to give but never did, like that edge off my bowling, various plum LBW shouts, etc. How can you keep your head up for 40 overs when you go for 6 an over and nothing you do is good enough to get them wickets? We can blame ourselves for some other errors though…like dropping a guy on two that went on to make 50…

Rylands 232/7 in 40 overs.

Bowling figures

G James 1/26 in 8 overs

G Cilliers 1/12 in 2 overs

F O’Niel 3/43 in 8 overs

J Van Gent 1/39 in 8 overs

Concidering that the average run rate they scored at was about 6 an over, and that G Cilliers bowled a lot better in his two overs at the death that his figures suggests, there was not a whole lot more we could have done to stop the runs from flowing, except maybe for hanging on to some sitters in the field!

We went in to bat with the belief that we could chase the total down. We were off to a slow start in the first 4 overs, but then the machine kicked into gear and runs started comming quickly. Brian Fulton and George Kamfer putting on 70 in 14 overs before Fulton played a straight lofted drive into long-on’s hands on the boundary. Out for 41. With the loss of that wicket we still had plenty of batting to come, but unfortunately the machine’s gears broke in half and we lost wickets at regular intervals. My good form did not last and I played a silly shot to get stumped for 21. Kamfer ended on 51 (7 x 4’s) (scoring a lot quicker and with intention we have not seen from him yet (more of the same please, Mr Boeta Dippenaar). Wray ended with a determined 16 (had a runner) and Wayne chipped in with a last ditch effort of 27 at the end. We ended 43 runs shy of their total at 189 all out in 38 overs.

There is a few possitives from the game, but it still hurts knowing that even though they scored 232 we lost the game rather than them winning it.

Stats - Game 3

James — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 09:28:26 +0000

For those who have been notified, here is the stats for the season thus far.

Understandably the batting stats looks a bit thin, but I don’t expect my form to last for ever. The batting stats will change big time if given another three or four games.

The best reading (statistically) comes from looking at the bowling stats with a few contenders staking an early claim for the coveted trophy at season’s end!

Enjoy!

A landmark or two…

James — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:22:40 +0000

This post is not just a landmark because I could not wait for Monday morning and effectively is posting this from my mobile phone in bed, but because we now have two very big wins notched up in two succesive games. We had a 9 wicket win over a side that, based on previous encounters, should have had the edge on us. St Augustines are a strong side with the best bowling we have seen in the three games we have played thus far and their batting…lets just say that he our fielding was not as good as it was on Saturday we could have chased 200 plus on a difficult pitch. No doubt our biggest success story is the unbroken 140 odd run partnership that George Kamfer and myself posted. True, we were both dropped 3 times, but you make your own luck. And the only thing you can do when you get that lucky is “make them pay dearly”! With the exception of two bowlers that understandably struggled into a very strong wind, we bowled very well to restrict them to 150 all out. Wray made it clear before the game that his ankle would not allow him to bowl on the day, but when i turned to him in the game he had no objection to take the nut and spin a few. 4 wickets later for next to no runs he was smiling from ear to ear!! So after the game the question gets asked on what our chances are to walk away as league champs in April next year…and the answer is simple. If we keep our heads right, keep the core of the side, chase the runs down as convincingly as we did thus far and keep the same level of competitiveness it should be in the bag! Last reason Wray scored a big ton to win a game for us, and it was awesome to see George and my teammates on the side guide me to my first “official” ton for the club to do the same for us on Saturday. So here is to us giving the league contenders hell this season…you guys have my vote for team of the season. Exciting times ahead no doubt!