Captain’s Report
On a dry but cool afternoon, Wilcot’s highly trained athletes and the rest of the team travelled past Russ Spencer’s alma mater Dauntsey’s School and (to date!) none of the team’s alma mater HM’s Prison at Erlestoke to arrive at a picturesque ground set in a former walled garden surrounded by bluebell carpeted woods. The ground and wicket had been well prepared and looked full of runs so,on winning the toss for a change, Wilcot’s captain chose to bat.
Mark Oliver and Wilson Saraj were chosen to open the batting but Wilson soon chose to give an Erlestoke fielder some gentle catching practice and fell without scoring with the score on 7. Our debutant Aussie Doug Perrins was made of sterner stuff and he and Mark took the score to 100 with some elegant strokeplay before Doug gloved a sharp delivery to the keeper from J Dorgan having made 31. Mark was next to fall to a slower ball from the rapid Dorgan having made a swashbuckling 76. Russ Spencer was also in good form and aided by useful runs from Tim Mister and Hugo Mayes took the score to 180 for 5 before some good bowling and a mini bottom order collapse meant the innings lost some much needed momentum and Russ became J Dorgan’s 4th victim (at a cost of 9 runs) off the last ball of the 45th over having made 66 with the score on 228.
Tea had a good selection of cheese, cheese and pickle, egg and ham sandwiches as well as breaded chicken bits and mini sausages but it was a little disappointing to have to drink tea from paper cups.
Ash Elliott and Billy Flippance were given the opportunity to open the bowling with the second new ball, a new league rule this year, and both bowled well. Ash removed one opener in his third over and quickly took 3 more and the score stood at 30 for 4 giving cause for much optimism. At this point, the aforementioned J Dorgan walked to the crease and it was soon clear that he was from a different planet to the earlier batsmen and aided by the second opener A Coupe he proceeded to despatch the ball at high velocity all over the ground. Wilcot’s answer was to introduce some novel attempts at fielding. Mark Oliver lay flat out on the ground in the path of the ball and Tim Mister perfected running in the opposite direction but the most imaginative was Kye Flippance, who having earlier used his head to stop the ball, executed a perfect bicycle kick to send the ball flying over the adjacent 12 foot wall. There was brief respite when Doug Perrins took his first wicket for Wilcot, aided by a sharp slip catch from Mark Oliver, to remove the remaining opener but our attempts to keep J Dorgan off the strike were to no avail and Erlestoke passed our total with nine overs to spare.
We lost 3 of our number including our revered umpiring Chairman between the ground and the pub afterwards but subsequent enquiries have confirmed that they were not detained at HM’s pleasure on the way home.
This was not a bad effort and something we can build on and equally we may not come across too many cricketer’s of J Dorgan’s ability in our future matches in division 6. We travel further into the West Country next weekend to play Heytesbury and Sutton Veny.
Wilcot 228 All out off 45 overs
Mark Oliver lbw 76
Wilson Saraj caught 0
Doug Perrins caught 31
R Spencer bowled 66
Tim Mister bowled 18
Hugo Mayes run out 12
K Flippance lbw 0
A Elliott bowled 1
B Flippance caught 1
G Newland run out 0
MFG not out 2
Extras 8 byes, 4 leg byes and 9 wides
Erlestoke 232 for 5 off 36.1 overs (J Dorgan 128 not out, A Coupe 53)
Ash Elliott 9-1-35-4
Billy Flippance 9-1-46-0
Doug Perrins 9-1-50-1
Graham Newland 6-1-65-0
Tim Mister 3-0-7-0
Hugo Mayes 0.1-0-4-0
Extras 4 wides, 15 leg byes and 10 byes