Charlton Down Cricket Club

Charlton Down versus Cerne (Friendly)

Saturday 18th April 09

Bowling not pretty but batting was!!

After last weeks game being cancelled Charlton Down’s first game of the season was at Cerne on a warm Saturday April afternoon. Chris Rickard took charge of his first game for the club and duly lost the toss. Cerne decided to bat first and after a good opening spell from Rich Fagence, bat they did!! Fagence returned a fantastic 2-19 from his allotted 8 overs, James Pretty also bowling superbly but with no fruition conceding 32 from his 8. Coates-Dale took off the keepers pads for a spell and this looked to have been a bad idea with his first over going for 20, but recovering to return 2-30 off 5 (mainly due to the fact the home bats who had got the runs had retired bored!!) Honourable mention to cheeky Mike Lingham whose spell of 2-0-42-0 really should have been a more respectable 2-0-42-1. Cerne amassed 281, half of which I am sure was in hitting sixes. In order to stop the flow of runs Lingham decided that using his face was just as good a method as using the keepers gloves that he had donned towards the end of the innings (fortunately his groupies were not around to see it!)

With a mammoth target of 281 to chase CDCC tactical batting line up was selected by the ‘who can get their pads on first’ route. Pretty and Fagence opened with Wormgoor going in at 3. Fagence fell without scoring and Wormgoor made a bright and breezy 17. Coates-Dale joined Pretty at the crease and the two pushed the score along nicely through the middle of the innings. After a few consultations Pretty played the anchor role whilst Coates-Dale started to accelerate realising that getting the required runs was not impossible. The two put on 139 in 23 overs before Coates-Dale fell for a bright 77 trying to launch a wide ball over extra-cover and getting a nick behind. Pretty meanwhile brought up his maiden 50 for CDCC occupying the crease for 37 overs and scoring a superb 77 as well. Both batsmen played some exquisite shots on both sides of the wicket. With the run rate increasing all the time it was left to the new guys Rich Burdett, Mark Fenwick and Paul Spurr (note to scorers that’s Spurr, NOT SPERM!!) to see us home, a quite impossible task at this point ( so we’ll not hold it against them this time!!) Butterworth scored 16 off something like 5 balls and Captain Catweezle ensuring everyone else got a bat before him came in at no. 11 to hit 2 sixes at the end.

A good work out for the first game of the season CDCC ending up short by 40 runs on 241 for 9 form the 40 overs