Charlton Down Cricket Club
Lamb to the Slaughter
Charlton Down versus Winfrith Sunday 27th April 08
Another Sunday another match abandoned when Charlton Down Cricket Club were well on top of the match. For CDCC’s first home game of the season Winfrith had made the journey amid fears of nasty weather reports but contrasting conditions outside the window allowed some play. After the previous weeks struggle to obtain players the skipper had a plethora of willing participants. The team therefore consisted of 5 players having their first game of the season with 2 of those, Matt Lovell and Adam Jones making full debut for the club.
The toss was made and as seems to be the norm these days (well twice in a row anyway) we won the toss and chose to bat. The Skipper decided to give some early season experience to some of the greener players and opened with Eric Bradshaw and Gavin Lamb. After an edgy couple of overs Bradshaw fell early and Matt Lovell was called into action early on. Lamb and Lovell put on 56 in 9 overs with some calm play by Lamb and Lovell looking composed for his 31, a great performance on his debut. Next up the skipper, and after a couple of good innings he fell quickly for 4 (Well much better to share the runs and the batting about I say). Enter John Butterworth. No one is quite sure what happened next, especially the Winfrith bowling attack. During the next 10 Overs Lamb and Butterworth put on 95 runs, 64 of these coming from the blade of Butterworth. That’s right 68 from just 26 balls. This included just 4 4’s and 6 6’s. Butterworth did manage to eek a few extra runs by targeting Wormgoor (The sub fielder) and taking on his arm many times. JB eventually nicked one to the keeper and walked off to mighty applause from both teams. The CD skipper decided a tighter reign needed to be applied and who better to apply it than Andy Smith. Smith saw off the last 15 overs for a tight 15 runs but the main action was happening at the other end. Lamb had been steadily accumulating a great score and as the final 2 overs approached needed 11 runs for those all-important 3 figures. With some great placement and some even better running by both players Lamb reached his century with 4 balls to spare becoming only the 4th player in the clubs history to achieve this feat. The crowd went wild as Lamb raised his bat and was roundly applauded off the park at the close of the innings. With only 9 boundaries in his 100 Not Out Lamb’s innings was one of patience, composure and great skill playing most shots along the ground and picking a fair few gaps when going airborne. Well Done Sir, We Salute You. Lamb and Smith put on an unbeaten 82 and this helped CD reach a record high score of 250 – 4 from their 40 Overs.
For the start of the Visitors reply the weather took a turn for the worse. Fog had engulfed the ground and a dampener had been put on the match. As the game went on the weather became worse. Homewood and debutant Jones had managed 5 overs each going for 18 and 12 respectively under wet and slippery conditions. Wormgoor was 1 ball into his 2nd over when his raw pace frightened the batsman so much that 12 overs into the innings the captains got together and drew an early close to proceedings with Winfrith on 38 – 0 but not pushing the game at all.
So as the skipper still looks better weather as the league season approaches to obtain his first win, the players enjoyed the new licensed facilities and Lamb enjoyed a good sit down.
Moment of the match, Lambs centaury. Great stuff.