Western Telegraph Match Report, ??th July 2006.



Neyland Match Report

Neyland vs Hook. League fixture, Saturday 22nd July 2006. Umpires: Ray Kane & Arthur Brady
Neyland approached this game knowing that Gregg Miller would have to leave for work at around 6:30pm and that Phil Davies was also on call, so keen to avoid the possibility of struggling with 9 men in the field as happened against Pembroke a few weeks earlier Neyland were keen to win the toss and field first. Hence it was no real surprise when Hook won the toss and asked Neyland to bat.
Neyland opened with the usual pairing of Gregg Miller and Paul Murray, and Hook started with Ross Martin from the club house end Keith James from the hedge end. The ball was seaming a little early on and on the first ball of James' second over he bowled Gregg. Jay Dunsford joined Murray at the crease and the runs continued to come at a fair rate but James soon struck again when Dunsford was caught by Lay for 12, with the score on 32 for 2 in only the fifth over.
Four maiden overs followed, but just as Neyland began to regain momentum, with three fours coming in quick succession, Hook struck again, with Ross Martin taking a sharp caught and bowled opportunity off Murray, with the score on 48 for 3 in the 12th over.
Captain Andrew Miller then joined John Jones at the crease, having dropped a place in the order while waiting for his pads to arrive at the ground, with the priority being to occupy the crease for a period. Miller had only arrived back in the county at 4am that morning following a wedding in Bath the previous day, and was looking a little jaded. Hook Captain Matthew Holder took over from James (6-2-23-2), and bowled a tight first over during which Hook believed they had Jones out, whereupon things got a little interesting. A good ball from Holder saw the whole team go up for a caught behind shout but Jones, who always walks when out, was sure he had not hit it, and was given not out. Numerous comments were directed at the batsman and Martin overstepped the mark a little during a nose to nose encounter with Jones in which he offered to 'knock you out you *****', but Jones was unmoved. Martin carried his aggression over into his following over, and was bowling reasonably quickly on a usual hard Neyland wicket. He dropped a few short but the Neyland batsmen took up the challenge plundering 15 runs off the over. Jones pulled one bouncer for six, and both batmen also struck fours, and Martin was rested at the end of the over (7-2-35-1).
Andrew Thomas started well for Hook, opening with a maiden, but it was looking as Neyland were recovering when with the score on 81, Jones took on another short ball and skied the ball to Jamie Phelps during Thomas' second over having made a quick 27, including 1 six and 5 fours.
Neyland now stood at 81 for 4 in only the 18th over, so it was now even more crucial that Neyland bat for an extended period without further loss of wickets, as Scott John joined Miller at the crease. John's pre-match preparation was even worse than Miller's, having just driven to the ground ten minutes into the innings following a particularly heavy week of drinking on holiday in Eastern Europe. However the pair set about the task at hand with relish and Neyland reached three figures in only the 23rd over. Miller and John kept the scoreboard ticking over nicely without taking any risks, and after 35 overs the score stood at 152 for 4, leaving Neyland well placed for a good score. The run rate began to accelerate from this point, with A Miller looking in excellent form, punishing anything drifting onto leg stump and driving one delivery from Holder over extra cover for six without ever being more than 20 foot off the ground. John was playing his part too, and beginning to open up a little with a few well struck drives.
After 40 overs Neyland had reached 191 for four and John was finally run out in the 41st over, looking for a sharp second when he should obviously know his own limitations better. He had scored a very valuable 40 runs, his highest score of the season, comprising 6 fours and 16 singles. The complete lack of twos or threes will surprise no one who has seen Scot in the three years since he started holiday camp, sorry, university.
Miller followed four runs later bowled by Ross Martin chasing a ton in the last few overs of the innings, having made 86, including one six and ten fours. Phil Davies made a quick 8 before Jeremy Charles 17 not out (including a six and a four) and Patrick Hannon (2 not out) saw Neyland home to a very useful 231 for 7 off 45 overs.
After lunch Brennan Lay and Jamie Phelps opened the batting for Hook and Neyland began with John Jones from the club house end and Patrick Hannon (a last minute call up following the unavailability of Andrew Phillips). Both bowler's bowled extremely tightly, and after Lay cut Jones for four from the last ball of his first over, Jones conceded only 5 more runs in a nine over spell in which he beat the outside edge numerous times, and was well backed up by the Neyland fielders. Hannon was almost as accurate, bowling four maidens in seven overs and conceding only 15 runs. He also beat the outside edge on several occasions before giving way to Jeremy Charles at the hedge end with the score on 30 for 0 off 15 overs, leaving Hook with a considerable amount of work to do in oder to secure any draw points, let alone to win the game.
Charles made the first breakthrough in his second over when he clean bowled Lay for only 5, after Lay had struggled to come to terms with the Neyland bowling after his early boundary. This brought together Hook's key batsmen of Phelps and Ross Martin.
John Jones gave way to Phil Davies and Davies immediately had Martin reaching for the ball and looking far from comfortable. Davies conceded only 2 runs from his first two overs, forcing the batsmen to look for runs off Charles and after Phelps hit a couple of boundaries Martin skied one which Charles caught himself. In Charles' following over Phelps again found the boundary twice but mis-timed the following delivery and was well held by Jay Dunsford at mid wicket. This almost brought a smile to Jay's face for the first time since tea, but he tried desperately to control himself and maintain the sulk that he had been in until that point. Charles' final two balls also found the boundary, as Phil Griffiths tried to counterattack, but Charles had by now broken the back of the Hook challenge, removing batsmen 1, 2 and 3 including both Phelps and Martin.
In the following over Davies was rewarded for his good spell of bowling when Grittiths holed out to an excellent catch from Gregg Miller, diving forward on the boundary. Gary Lloyd replaced Charles (6-0-37-3) from the hedge end and in the following over Davies struck again when Sean Hannon took a very sharp stumping opportunity down the leg side to remove Keith James, leaving Hook 93 for 5 in the 29th over, and Neyland began to think of victory.
Lloyd (5-1-15-2) then took two wickets as Matthew Rowlands was caught by Jeremy Charles at long off and Andrew Thomas was caught by Andrew Miller at wide long on. Jay Dunsford's pace took over from Davies' off spin which returned figures of 7-1-20-2, and Jay took three wickets, one in each of his three overs to blow away the Hook tail and record figures of 3-0-8-3, and finally leave the melancholy Dunsford smiling. Hook had been bowled out for only 118 in 37 overs, and Neland had won by 113 runs, claiming the full 30 points in the process and moving to fifth spot in the table with only four games left.
After the game Gary Lloyd pointed out to Keith James that they were wearing the same sandals, a sure sign that they were the same age, though Keith was older and must be the oldest player in the first division. They agreed that they were both 43 this year, and next year they would be 42.