The CWB Blog - Kenya coming in March

Unless you would prefer to drink the champagne, you could make this different sorbet. It can be used as a dessert course or as a palate cleanser between courses. 

Apologies for a slightly late blog this week, I was too busy watching the cricket and hanging England flags around the house to even contemplate doing any real work yesterday.

I’ll start by rounding off some of last weekend’s results that I missed in the previous edition. As you may or may not have known the U14’s were playing in the annual six-a-side at Christ’s. Unfortunately they didn’t fair brilliantly getting knocked out in the quarters by Roffey which was a disappointment for them. By the looks of things the main problem laid in the batting department with Chilt never really scoring enough runs in several of the games before being smashed around the Hospital by Roffey at the end.

There was a bit of fun to be had on Sunday with a Chilt XI playing a combined “Chancing” XI made up of Chilt and Lancing players as way of thanks for their generous investment towards our brilliant new nets.  There were some people questioning the team selection that led to a fairly comfortable win for Chilt but I won’t mention any names! Chancing batted first but didn’t get off to the ideal start when Mick saw for Dave obviously paying the price for not having the chance to wake up in the field first. Chancing seemed to struggle to pick up the scoring rate due to some tight bowling; however Scotty missed a big chance of getting JD out early, Mick putting the in-form batsmen down and short cover...  Stuey Miller then took 3-20 including a vicious Brett Lee-esque toe-breaker to do for JD and a masterful spell of spin bowling from Samuel Aviss, and things were looking pretty bleak until a fine display of slogging from Jakey at the end rather un-Hodgsonly going for agriculture over culture helping to carry Chancing through to 139 all out.

Chilt on the other hand never really looked in trouble with Bill Hay opening and making 47 before being outfoxed by Stevo Williams with a canny full toss which clean bowled him. Another Hay carried on before being run out by a now not so sleepy Dave Robinson. Chilt were seen home by Bob whilst meanwhile England managed to hang on for a draw in his backyard. Just as well Chilt won really as Mick would have been a bit depressed if he had managed to win nothing all weekend!

The U14’s finished off a good season by thrashing Barns Green at home on Monday evening. Green won the toss and Ponting-esquely put Chilt into bat. Chilt duly racked up a strong total of 128 from their 20 overs with a retirement from the captain. Barns Green were then blown away for 49 by a Chilt hurricane which included the use of nine different bowlers and only 22 runs off Green bats.

This week didn’t begin well for the Colts, it all started on Thursday when both the 13’s and 9’s lost.  13’s were playing at Faygate where they managed to restrict Roffey to a chaseable 114 all out thanks mainly to great economical bowling from Glover (1-8 from 4 overs) and Hasler (1-13 from 4 overs). Things got off to a flyer with Curtis retiring and opening partner Glover getting a solid 19 but it all went downhill from there and Chilt fell short at the end of the day by 5 runs.

The U9’s meanwhile failed to make their home advantage count against Horsham. Sham batted first and made an impressive total of 300 whilst Chilt lost far too many wickets in reply and finished up on 194. At least their losing margin wasn’t as bad as the Aussies!

And so onto Super Saturday and the U10’s title decider against Lindfield. With Lindfield batting first Chilt managed to restrict them to a low total of 250 due to tight bowling and great fielding. When it came to the chase Chilt actually scored more runs (283) unfortunately they paid the price for poor running and suffered a total of 14 dismissals which brought their net score down to 213. Unlucky guys finishing 2^nd in a league that size is still no mean feat though and you can console yourselves with the fact you had the best Net Run Rate meaning you played the most exciting cricket.

We won’t mention the adults on Saturday as there isn’t really much to mention although the full story, along with an interesting analogy, can be found in the latest news section.

Sunday turned out to be a belter for the mighty Green & Gold and no I am definitely not talking about Australia…

The juniors as so often seems to be the case got things off to a flyer.  The 12’s demolished Broadbridge Heath away from home. Chilt batted first and smashed a huge 166-4 from their 20 overs with RCP and young Jeffries both retiring. They promptly destroyed Heath with some great bowling from Tanner and Bryant who both took 2-2 en route to bowling Heath all out for 27 and smashing them even more than we did the Aussies.

Us 16’s maintained our unbeaten record on a freak wicket at Southwater. We were put into bat as I lost the toss for the first time all year which I am of course blaming on Bill Hay’s dodgy two pence piece! We found ourselves struggling on a sketchy 36-4 which was mainly due to a pitch that was located on a huge incline to the extent that it was like batting on a roof with huge movement in from one end and away from the other with the added spice of ludicrous trampoline bounce. Despite my whinging David “The Rock” Bowen Davies once again came to our rescue in a match winning partnership with John “I can bat after all” Tolson. David eventually made 23 before getting a delivery that jagged back and bounced ridiculously from the off spinner that saw him caught high at slip by their Ginger Giant. Tolson exacted some sort of revenge on said off spinner with some beautiful top edged, green house smashing sixes, which I could only stand and admire from the other end, en route to a superb 34. Thanks mainly to those two we finished on a competitive 152. The same two players got us off to a brilliant start with the ball with Tolson grabbing 2 early wickets whilst charging down a near vertical down slope. DBD from the other end bowled his 5 overs for just 6 runs despite having to almost hike his way up to the bowling crease. Our bowling was so economical and our fielding so tight, as it has been all season, that after 18 overs they had barely reached 50. Their first boundary did not come until the 19^th over when they had clearly decided that they were going to just try and swing the bat at everything, an attitude that when coupled with an absurdly short boundary on one side inevitably led to everyone going round the park a little. Despite their late acceleration they still only made 117 runs which is testament to just how good we were in the field, something which we will carry into our title decider against Billy at The Rec on Friday. A game at which we would love some support!!

Sunday afternoon saw a bit of a walkover for Chilt against Amberley. They found themselves playing on a “crash mat” wicket, that is slow, low and generally rubbish, on which Amberley chose to bat and were then ruined by Mick and Scott who became the second bowling pair of the week to finish with identical figures on this occasion 2-8. This, along with some assistance from the rest of the attack, castled Amberley for a ton exactly. Chilt were guided home easily by Bob (53*) and Scott (45*) who thought it was a T20 game with just the one casualty of Clarence (S. Ward)... 

As we near the business end of the season here’s hoping the good results continue…

Welcome to this bumper edition of the Blog recounting a fantastic fortnight at The Rec.  Just a word of warning though, I wouldn’t advise reading this late at night as you probably won’t finish till the morning when you wake up!

Due to the excitement of cricket week I did not manage to find the time to write up last week so here we are now:

On Wednesday 1st, the Under 11s faced Roffey away from home and unfortunately lost. Once again I won’t bother trying to compete with Mark’s match report which can be found on this link http://wct.play-cricket.com/content/view.asp?id=10250481&cid=218&tid=14&referer=&fixture=&team=10087668

Saturday got off to a slow start at home. The U13’s were due to face West Wittering but there were a few delays to the start of play. Firstly we had some angry croquet players wishing to play but they were soon sorted out when they realised that the need of 22 young kids was slightly greater than that of the four of them. The next obstacle was the aftermath of the bee invasion we had suffered early in the week. The remaining bees had decided to reside upon the artificial pitch and so Groundsmen Gee was required to save the day. When play did eventually begin West Wittering was dispatched even faster than the bees for a grand total of 29 all out with Xavier Tras holding the only score in double figures. For their innings West Chilt mixed their batting order up a little to give a few other guys a chance to shine. Once again though, it was Xavier in fine form with a total of 20 which helped to see Chilt home with the loss of just one wicket.

The U14’s did not go quite so well losing to Ansty on Saturday Morning unfortunately my usual wealth of information regarding U14’s games is at school so I can’t really give you much more information than the scores  which were West Chilt all out for 70 with far too many ducks! Ansty got their relatively comfortably with 3 overs and 4 wickets to spare.

Unusually it was the adults who led the way on the Saturday although that was probably because one of the games was conceded!

Firstly the Firsts! We were away at Aldwick in a game we desperately wanted to win having somehow lost to them in an abysmal first game of the season which I do not care to recount! Once again we had them not many for lots, in this case 21-6 , and yet they still managed to reach a total of 108, it would have been many more but for the introduction of David Bowen-Davies who seemed to be completely unplayable taking 3-6 in just 2 overs. I guess at this stage I should probably mention Mick who bowled quite well taking 5-35. Then to the batting, we found ourselves in the rather unusual situation of having no openers.  By the virtue of being the only ones who did not specifically ask not to open myself and Gentlemen Steve found ourselves striding out to the middle. Steve was unfortunate to get a delivery that jagged back ridiculously of the seam to knock off stump out the ground in just the 3rd over. Things were looking a bit shaky when Callum “Clubber” Wyatt joined me in the middle at 10-1. Despite their Captains best that is rather pathetic and immature attempts at sledging I was not to perish until we had reached a score of about 50 by which point it was going to take a serious collapse to lose! Thankfully Mick then strode out to see us home with an unbeaten 45 and I think it’s safe to say he probably claimed man of the match for that game.

The Seconds had an even easier time of things with Clymping conceding the game which meant that Chilt got the full 30 points carrying us up to 2nd place with promotion definitely on the cards. In place of the cancelled game a 6-a-side fun game took place the highlight of which was apparently Tolson’s outrageous Dilscoop off Dave. Having experienced Tolson’s attempt at a reverse sweep yesterday, which for those who weren’t there was pretty awful, I don’t even believe he got bat on it but I’m sure the legend will live on!

Sunday the 5th was a mixed bag with just about every conceivable result occurring across the 3 games. The unbeaten U10’s continued their remarkable run although this victory was probably their easiest yet with Plaistow conceding the match. By the looks of the table which shows Chilt in second place behind Lindfield who are also unbeaten, we are awaiting what will undoubtedly be a thrilling top of the table clash between the two unbeaten titans of the U10’s league...

The U12’s unfortunately had to provide the loss for the day, losing out to Barns Green at The Rec.  Green batted first and posted an intimidating 118-4 which proved to be just too much for Chilt who only managed to reach 89-7 with notable performances from Reece Collins-Powell and James Monaghan who both retired.

The Sunday Side then provided a thrilling tie against Ashurst to finish the day.  Chilt batted first and once again the ducks were out in force with there being 4 in the innings, thankfully our more talented overseas players, that is Bob and Shaun managed to share a 72 partnership for the second wicket which allowed Chilt to reach a total of 177. Now as you may have guessed form the whole tie thing Ashurst also reached 177 all out with a certain West Chilt youngster Mark Fischel, who for some reason was playing for the oppo, reaching 44 before falling to the Welsh Wizard with just the one run needed for victory. This apparently was the first time a West Chilt adult’s team have been involved in a draw, although allegedly Peter Jones played in one such game in the early 19th Century, and if Big Bird’s captaincy is to be remembered for nothing else he will at least have this remarkable statistic to boast...

And so onto what was a very successful cricket week. It all began with Naezing Common on the Monday. They turned up a little late having come from the pub and as was evident from their pint laden umpires they planned to carry on drinking! They batted first and made 146 all out. Almost everyone had a bowl except for JC and Mick although Jake proved to be the most effective with his liquorice allsorts taking 3 wickets from the bamboozled Commoners!? We got there relatively comfortably with plenty of wickets in hand and in doing so claimed our first victory against Naezing in 3 meetings. The real fun began after the game with Naezing doing their best to drink us dry and savouring the superb bbq of which it was said whoever purchased the produce must have been a real connoisseur, don’t know who that could have been...

And so to Tuesday and what was undoubtedly going to be the highlight of the week. The Aussie T20 with great cricket, music, DJing, pizzas and even, purportedly, some dancing girls. Alas we were not to find out on that Tuesday due to the torrential rain that inevitably led to the game being cancelled and as yet we are still waiting for the rearranged date.

Wednesday saw our first ever game against Uckfield Anderida which proved to be a very tight match.  Uckfield won the toss and chose to bat first in what was meant to be a Pro (??) 40 game but was actually reduced to 35 overs due to a heavy rain delay. Uckfield matched our 2 Aussies with 2 of their own and they set about getting Uckfield off to a bit of a flier. Thankfully due to a couple of super catches (if I may say so myself!) from Mick and yours truly we managed to get rid of them. From then on in life was a little easier and we managed to get them all out for 151. It should have been a simple chase but we were quite slow of the mark, some would describe it as a perfectly paced innings. Thankfully Mick saw us home with just 3 balls to spare. Apparently Uckfield have already agreed to a rematch next year which is good news as it was an exciting and competitive contest.

On Thursday the challengers were Lingfield. With Mick finally given the chance to have a bowl with the new ball he took a devastating 3-8 and with some help from our latest overseas signing a West Indian Paceman (?!!) going by the name of Gregory Martin had the top order reeling, with them 5 down for not many it looked as this was going to be a walk in a park. That wasn’t quite how it worked out mainly thanks to stubborn resistance from their captain an ex minor counties player who was eventual, with them 5 down for not many it looked as this was going to be a walk in a park. That wasn’t quite how it worked out mainly thanks to stubborn resistance from their captain and an ex minor counties player who was eventually completely deceived by a cunning full toss from Wardy. Lingfield were eventually restricted to 181-7, a decent but well chaseable total.

Thanks mainly to Dave, who yet again received his customary drop, we were off to a flier, 3 fours in the first over if I remember correctly. Wardy fell with the score on 60 but was soon followed by Captain Llewellyn who was completely bamboozled by a yorker from the ex-Devon player who was bowling mystery spinners. A collapse soon followed with Dave finally falling on 78 quickly followed by Mick and myself who both received interesting LBW decisions from Trigger Tolson!! Thankfully the kids did good with Dougie and Jake seeing us home with 2 overs to spare and 26* and 12* respectively.

This left us with 3 wins from 3 games going into the Chairmen’s vs President’s game. Peter Jones won the toss and chose to have a bat which left us Chairmen’s out in the field. The game started very slowly, that is the scoring rate not the overs rate which we mistakenly kept much too fast. The introduction of Grant Morrrish and his fellow ringer Carl helped to speed things up. It has always been an ambition of Grant’s to try and hit one into James house and so on this occasion I was only too happy to oblige serving up a rank full toss which he duly smashed towards the house only just short of the windows!! Despite the fact that Grant had almost smashed her windows Jude continued to cheer for him which I tried to explain was wrong but to no avail!! Thanks to the aforementioned late acceleration we were set a target of 250-2.  Unfortunately due to a very slow over rate we were left with more than 10 fewer overs in which to make the runs and therefore never really looked like getting close. We stuck to our guns all the way and continued attacking till the end but the game ended finishing in a draw with us finishing on 221-8. Perhaps an overs game would be a good idea for next year so we can at least have a fair contest with a winner at the end of it??? After the game was the bbq as run by the U13’s dream team to wrap up an unbeaten cricket week, it proved to be very popular with the pavilion and patio overflowing with people, when’s the extension coming??!!

This weekend was heavily affected by rain which was quite handy as this blog is already far too long!!

However Saturday morning was not too badly affected and the U13’s comfortably beat Eastergate to finish the season unbeaten and claim the title of Champions of the West Area Under 13’s League. Well done to all the lads and here’s hoping that this is the first of many pieces of silverware at West Chilt this year.

The unbeaten U10’s continued their remarkable run beating Barns Green away from home to set up what promises to be an exciting top of the table decider against Lindfield next Sunday. A little bit of plagiarism here, this is Fitz’s account of the game:

West Chilt Under 10’s maintained their perfect start to the season and go into the last match against Lindfield heading the table on net run rate from Lindfield. The teams arrived at a drizzly Barn’s Green and having won the toss Patrick Cope elected to bat first. The opening pair of George Lee and Eddie Miller found the Barns Green opening bowlers a struggle to get away and were unable to get off to their usual flying start but Eddie Miller scored regularly and preserved his wicket in scoring 15 runs. The next pair of Zac Cisoti and Harry Jones both scored fluently and achieved the highest partnership of the innings of 31.The third pair of Crispin Tavares and, in particular, Paul King kept the positive momentum going and at the end of their partnership the team score was 275. They were replaced by Charlie Treasure and Gatsby Fitzgerald who took the team score to 287.  Charlie batted very well to score 15 runs in that partnership.  The final pair of Patrick Cope and Alex Scott took the final total to 312 with their usual fine running and shot placement.

 

The game was over after the opening West Chilt bowlers destroyed the opening partnership with George Lee taking 6 wickets in his first two overs. The remaining West Chilt bowlers continued to exert pressure and took regular wickets with Paul King capping a fine all round display with two wickets for two runs. Barns Green finished on 217 with West Chilt taking 11 wickets to cap another excellent performance.

 

Seeing as he went to the effort to write it I thought I might as well include it, the fact it saved me a bit of writing is just an added bonus!!!

That’s it for this bumper edition of the blog but it in a shameless attempt to rack up a few more comments I would ask for everyone to submit their favourite moment of Cricket Week below.

I’ll start things off with MG’s fantastic reverse sweep nailed to the point boundary for four although I can’t remember who it was against!!!

 

 

 

The kids are alright…

As you have probably guessed from above us kids were in fine form this weekend well and truly showing the older and supposedly wiser lot how to do it.

First some history we, that is the current U16’s, had never beaten Ansty. In our runners up season of 2007 it was they whom denied us victory on both occasions we met; particularly humiliating was the final that year where we found ourselves at 5-5. So it was far to say we wanted this. The side we were playing against was their U15’s so not the same men who had beaten us in 07 but nevertheless as we have a majority of U15’s it was still a big game.

We bowled economically from the off and took wickets throughout to help restrict the run rate.  Fielding was superb, a special mention to our boundary riders JT and Fermo who cut off almost everything. JT bowled well at the start with 3 overs for 11 in tandem with DBD who finished with 5 overs 14-2. JT was no needed to bowl at the end due to a superb spell from Jack “Hollywood” Hasler finishing with figures of 4 overs 11-2. Due to our economical bowling and superb fielding we managed to keep Ansty down to 104 – 9 off their 25.

Now if you are of a depressive nature its probably best to scroll down to the last paragraph if not then read on…

The Sunday Superstars didn’t fare much better although I would like to apologise to the team for my late withdrawal due to injury. We batted first making 141 all out with our ringer Peter Hasler posting a highest score of 44.  This was never enough and Fittleworth got there relatively easily with 4 wickets to spare although Roy did manage to take 2-33.

For those of you who aren’t aware here are the standings for all our junior teams.

U10’s Played 6 Won 6 1^st

U11’s Played 6 Won 2 5^th

U12’s Played 7 Won 4 4th

U13’s Played 3 Won 1 3rd

U14’s Played 9 Won 6 3rd

It should now only be a matter of time before the success that we see in the junior leagues mirrors itself in the Senior XI’s, I hope!

First things first the almighty blogging team, that is Goring and I have a few things we would like to clear up:

Matt has not retired it is just that the blog is proving too taxing on his intellect and having returned to school, it’s all a bit too much for him. However in the words of my bodyguard Arnie “He will be back”. So don’t worry I won’t be boring you for long.

Secondly it was the understanding that the blog for Week 8 was not my responsibility as it was only handed over to me on Wednesday last week. Although I would like to thank Big Bird for the very flattering picture of me which accompanies the blog.

One final thing, an appeal to whoever scores for the 1^st XI, please fill in all the details so I don’t have to put up with Big Bird sending pedantic e-mails about who caught who and the like.

Anyway I find myself recounting yet another superb weekend for the West Chilt and Thakeham Superstars who have lasted a little longer than Stanford’s.

The U16’s or should that be U15’s with a few U14’s got us off to a flying start by thrashing Barns Green and showing that us old timers are not required.  In my absence, captain DBD lost the toss, about the only thing I have done right all season, and we were put in to bat. Now this was our first time batting first all year but that did not stop us from posting a huge total of 180-8 off our 25 overs. Callum “Chanderpaul” Wyatt, Jack “Collingwood” Glover and David “Johnson” Bowen-Davies all retiring, Charlie Reeves managed to somehow lift his beast of a bat off the ground to make a quick fire 28 and the best batsmen in the Chambers family also chipped in! Barns Green were then blown away by the Tornado Jack’s, Hasler and Glover, bowling in tandem and ripping the heart out of the innings with 5 wickets between them. That leaves the seemingly unstoppable U16’s unbeaten all season and lying 2^nd in the table.

The U14’s faced Steyning in the morning and following the tone of the U16’s the evening before set a massive total of 159-9 in their 20 with Ben Miller retiring along with Glover Jnr Jnr who was alleged to have hit a Gaylesque six over cow corner.  Steyning were then castled for 73 with another Hasler taking the spoils, Ben took 5 for 5 from his 4.  This victory leaves the U14’s sitting in 3^rd.

And so to the 1^st XI who could probably have won playing left handed by the sounds of things.  The opponents, if you could call them that, were Bury & West Burton. Captain Toff lost the toss but we were asked to bowl anyway. As I was not present at the game I can only pass on what I heard; Chaloner was apparently the pick of the bowlers with his hard work and tight line allowing wickets to tumble from the other end where Armstrong bowled O.K!!! There was plenty of help from the fielders with a couple of run outs thrown into the mixer. West Chilt then went out to bat, opening with Horatio and Miller who had even decided to bat left handed, despite this Chilt quickly accumulated the necessary runs without the loss of a wicket completing an absolute mincing. Apparently the real action occurred after the game with a highly competitive and entertaining six-a-side game but you will have to ask those involved to recount the action…

I was off playing for the 2^nd’s on account of being a walking wounded which does not bode well for the future! We decided a trip to the seaside was in order and headed down to Worthing.  Things were not always going to plan however when we found ourselves at around about 60-6 with our top order having been destroyed by their only decent player a Sri-Lankan whose action bore a striking resemblance to Malinga the Slinga. Thankfully the young guns fired with Reeves starting a recovery in a partnership worth about 20 along with our better overseas player Bob who was still a bit irritated about the fact that the early collapse had prevented him from having his customary 10 cans of Strongbow before going out to bat. Our other overseas player Dave did not receive his customary dropped catch but was held on the boundary after a bit of juggling, too much T20 watching I think,  on a promising 9!  Bob then carried on the resurgence with David who made a superb 65* and Dlishanesquely carried us through to a respectable total of 184.

This proved to be more than enough against a very weak batting line up that quite simply crumbled under the pressure. There were a few controversies such as when we had their number 4 out stumped off Tolson by the surprisingly watchful Goring behind the stumps however on both occasions the teenaged square leg umpire was slowly falling asleep and missed both appeals and therefore gave them not out. The same batsman then caused another argument or shall we say discussion when he was umpiring at square leg and called a no ball off a moon ball from Sherpa that had a fair bit of altitude when it passed the batsmen at about waist height and had him caught by David at long on. Gee stepped in quickly quoting Paragraph 3 of Rule 42 stating something or another meaning that the batsman was in fact out. He promptly stormed off the ground and threw his bat against the wall that enclosed what was clearly some top secret facility due to the copious amounts of barbed fencing surrounding it. We soon had them 9 down for not very many when they decided to try and bore us all to death by blocking out. They lasted for a while but thankfully with eyelids drooping Tolson finally decided to get nasty and bowled three bouncers followed by a pitched up delivery that caught the batsman on the crease and led to an edge flying towards Steve Ward at slip who took a brilliant low slip catch to finish the game. Whoever advised him to fire the bouncers in must have been a genius…

And so finished a highly successful Saturday with both sides now lying 4^th in their respective leagues.

Sunday saw a double header against Wisborough Green. The U12’s got things off to a flyer, winning by 24 runs with RCP and young Tanner making 28* and 18 respectively and Lawson taking 3-11.

The Sunday side were left to rue what could have been after a narrow defeat to the Green in the afternoon. Things started well enough with Chilt posting 244-6 with Goring, yes Goring, making 95, having been alleviated of his blogging duties and clearly the curtailing effects it has on cricket performance and therefore beating me by one run, which I am sure I will never hear the end of, along with Mick hitting 51 in a partnership of 111. Green unfortunately came out and claimed victory with Robbie Woodman making a massive total of 146* and clearing the ropes to win the game with an over to spare. Jack Hasler and Dan Bullock made their senior debuts and were unlucky not to be part of a winning team and Sean Tavares suffered a revenge attack after the Boks win over the Lions when he found himself on the receiving end of a double team tackle by a couple of drunken villagers.

So that’s it, congratulations if you’ve made it this far and long may the victories continue…

Another successful week for most. Even myself, who has managed to get his butt round to writing his blog. I have some qualms this weekend though.

1)       The first is with a certain William Chambers, as a little birdie told me, he described me as ¡°out of shape¡± at school. Yes William, I may physically be out of shape, yet, perhaps not as much as a certain someone in cricket. Let¡¯s just check the senior batting averages this year¡­  Yes, mine may only be a measly 13, but what is yours Mr Chambers¡­? 0. Yes; zero, zilch, zip, nil, null, cero, §ß§à§Ý§î, Áã. In whatever language you put it, point proven.

2)       I was dropped from the Sunday XI this weekend by Mr Hasler. 13 is bad but it¡¯s not that bad, surely?! Even my father was asked to play in my place!

3)       Bloody great well done to Malcolm Fitzgerald¡¯s U-10¡¯s age group who are still undefeated. Thank you for proving everybody wrong: an incapable coach does NOT mean a incapable team!

4)       I would like to offer my condolences to the Australian fans. If anybody else would, I assure you that you may find them in Leicester for the next two weeks, probably munching away on some cheese around the town. However, Ricky Ponting may be even more CHEESEd off (haha, funny joke!) as he was fined 10% of his match fee for a slow over rate. God knows what fine JC would get considering how slow his over¡¯s tick past¡­

Also, sorry for missing my blog last week, yet again. I had another exam (economics this time). I did it fo the team, as I was just hoping that it may help me to aid some of our bowlers on their economy rates (oh there he goes again!).

Right, onto the senior cricket. Unfortunately, not a whole lot to report from me as I was dropped for the Sunday game so had to go and play for the arch nemesis of WCTCC, Barns Green. Don¡¯t worry, not a senior match, but an U-18¡¯s game. Yes, we lost, but at least it gave me a chance to bat up the order at 6 and finally score some runs!

The first XI game saw the debut of the Bilb¨¦ brothers, Michael and Tom. We were very hopeful as these two were relatives of Greg Brown and the legendary Steve Tuhey, therefore, between them we assumed they must have some cricketing prowess. As it turned out, both can bowl fantastically. Michael opening the bowling alongside Mr Chaloner proved to be a very successful opening partnership as JC got a few of the Belgrave Adelaide boys trapped in front and if not for some dire slip catching and some extremely unbalanced keeping, Michael may have walked away with a few wickets. His brother, Tom, had more success having one caught behind and a few good LBW shouts being turned down.  Fitz finally finished off the BA boys with his sensational spell of 4-16, again taking key wickets, and along with Aussie Mick (2 wickets) bowling well again meant it was our turn to bat. Now let¡¯s not go into TOO much depth here, but Neil Miller batted very fluently, finally finding some of that elusive form to score 28 before being bowled by a lovely inswinging yorker, and along with Captain Chambers (23) and Craig Pulling (40) again batting very well, we started to look good. However, after a few key wickets were taken and after another fantastic duck from myself, we were bowled all out for 119 off of 28 overs. A disappointing result, but lets look ahead to next weekend, away to Brighton Insurance.

For details of the other matches, I did steal other match reports (hang on, we can read that elsewhere.  Cop out!! Ed) as I don't have a Scooby Doo (clue, for those of you not in with the latest lingo) what went on! All I know is that after being marshalled and exhausted after a week of work with the famed P.J. Goring Builders, Aussie Dave managed to score a pretty big total, must have been Big Phil¡¯s influence!

Sunday XI /Ten Man Ansty away at Ansty

Right, let¡¯s just hope that I remember to write this next week, with details of the Brighton Insurance game and the fantastic annual fixture against the Fleet Street Strollers!

So then. Weekend 5 and first things first, apologies for missing last week's blog... From the way the exams and revision went, I may as well have just written the blog. Even with exams, I hope the old saying 'It's the taking part that counts' still applies...

Anyways, onto the cricket and another very successful weekend for most teams. This weekend, I don't have the information on most of the teams, yet I do know what happened in all of the games that I played as well as the U-16s.

The 16's had their game at home against the old enemy (at least as far as this season goes), Pulborough. They brought along a reasonably strong team and were asked to bat first, getting a score of 105 with one retiree but after some good-bowling from Team Chambers and a good spell from Jack Glover were all dismissed, and could have been all gone earlier if not for some dodgy little decisions by a certain South African (you go deaf when you reach old age Sean, don't worry, it's normal!)... So out comes Tom and JT (yes with the new boots), Tom facing first ball and after a very well played diamond duck from Tommo, Jake Hodgson comes into bat. JT had a great innings, cutting and pulling the Pulborough bowlers everywhere, until finally retiring on 30*. Along came Shivnarine Wyatt who has suddenly found this batting prowess and after a foray by Wyatt, Glover and Hodgson, WCTCC got the runs with around 7 over reaining, heading for a very high score of 180 if not limited! Good effort lads!

The first XI played at home against the genuine old enemy, West Blatchington. On a very pristine fast wicket, we batted first with only Captain Chambers really scoring significantly to gain a total of 144 all out after West Blatch just bowling three bowlers all the way through (now thats what I call depth in bowling... NOT!).

This then brought West Blatch out to bat and this is when things really started to get interesting. Aussie Mick and JC opened the bowling and got around 5 wickets before the game went slightly stale... However, West Blatch's fate was sealed when they lost our ball on around 39 overs. We went into the changing rooms to get their ball which was in much better condition and so as the ball started swinging, wickets kept falling and after 17.2 overs from JC and near that from Captain Chambers (one of the most aggressive spells of bowling I've ever seen and as fast as I've ever seen either of them bowl), West Blatch were all out for 130 odd... Probably the best game I have ever played in and so happy we won! Well done to the guys and just to JC, we will see you when you have recovered, in August...

I must apologise for the lateness of this blog… All I can say is I was just trying to be like William Hasler. I thought if he was late to the airport to pick up the Aussies, then I would be excused for being late once on my blog. Unfortunately not. And to be honest, it wasn’t Geography HOMEWORK, I had an AS exam today (very important, just for all you guys that did O-Levels back in the Dark Ages) for Geography and so for once in my life, thought I would revise. Now I see why I never bother revising, too much hassle comes with it.

Last night, Murray Goodwin came to the club. Of course he was late, but we will say that is “fashionably late” and what a great night we had from there on. God, we even had some lovely ladies down at the club. Mrs Hodgson was a bit busy trying to get Sid the Shark’s number, but that’s a story for another day… Our nets are now officially open, and what a great privilege it is to have them!  Thanks to everyone that put in so much effort, thanks to the sponsors, and thanks to James Chaloner for coming down there every Wednesday evening to make us all look good!

Cricket then, and Saturday drew the U-10 yoof at Pulborough who again won. Fantastic start to the season for them and then slightly later in the day, the U-14’s travelled to Horsham. After being invited to bat first, and after a cameo from Chambers Jr. Jr. and the two Bennys (Hasler and Miller), they managed to make a very good total of 107-4. Horsham were invited into bat and some great bowling from the other Miller (he felt left out of the action), they failed to chase the total, leaving the U-14’s a great win by 17 runs.

Onto the Saturday seniors games then. Unfortunately, not a great amount of detail can be involved here as I was unable to play this weekend, stuck in a suit at a wedding in East Grinstead. What can be done ehh…

A frustrating result for the 2^nd XI at home to Barns Green. The visitors put Chilt in to bat and we filled our boots; well most of us anyway. The first tactical ploy worked a treat, Steve Ward getting selflessly run out without scoring allowed the welsh-man Llewellyn to get to the crease nice and early (and just at the conclusion of his 14^th Strongbow). A steady partnership with Mark “McKenzie” Aylward followed to set a platform, and a good, quick knock from Brucie really got WCTCC flying. At Brucie's fall came young Mr Wyatt, who began to display aggressive intent to the innings with some excellent straight hitting of the increasingly ailing bowling, and an 18 overs partnership of aggressive and entertaining batting followed. Callum reached his first 50 for the club, and Llewellyn went on to score his 354th century for the club (or something like that). When Callum went for 64, the two had completed a partnerhip of 173 in 18 overs - and set up a total that reached 297, 298 or 304... Depending on which part of the scorebook you were reading (!) – in the end we settled with 298-4 in our max 49 overs. Llewellyn remaining not out on 134.  

 

We fancied our chances in 45 overs with a strong bowling attack which contained Armstrong, DBD, Ashley and Gee - but despite Micky Armstrong turning the opening batsman inside out over and again as he bowled the ball round corners - the batsmen's rear-guard action provided few genuine opportunities. At no point did Barns Green attempt to chase the target, and some solid batting ensured that we couldn't take the wickets we needed - with only the skipper Big Fingers Glover really having the wicket taking knack - taking 2 late wickets. Barns Green gained a few edged and few easy 4s as we had men around the bat - but ended on 179-5 to gain just 4pts for their efforts, and Chilt picked up 12pts - leaving us 6th in 2nds Division 3.

 

The 1^st XI travelled away to Barns Green and were asked to bowl first. The bowling attack managed to get some good wickets on a pitch that was obviously dodgy (we know this because Fitzy got it to spin a bit and got a five-for!) and managed to restrict Barns Green to a respectable total of 218 all out. Then came the Chilt batting line-up. A great show by everyone, especially David Hardisty with some good running between the wickets. Captain Chambers managed to get to 96 and then the tail showed the boys home, with a good show of batting and bowling leading to a great two wicket victory.

Further success for the yoof followed with the U-12’s winning away, the U-16’s winning at home (with a great last shot by Jackkkk Glover) and then the U-13’s winning away at Midhurst. Basically, great job to everyone who played and lets just keep it up, another unbeaten weekend next time please guys!