Match Report
On a glorious summer evening we welcomed a new opponent to the old school ground, Marlborough College staff team (with a couple of students). Wilcot regular Andy Smith had been undertaking scouting by watching live streams of their recent matches and informed me that they would be a fair match. Upon inspection a fantastic wicket had been prepared by Pete and his band of helpers and clearly the opposition skipper thought it was full of runs as upon winning the toss there was no hesitation in choosing to bat.
The shiny new ball was given to regular opening bowlers Jack Cox and Andy Smith to get us going and Andy was first to strike with a huge swinging ball that beat the bat and bowled Marlborough Colleges opening bat. Not happy with 1 wicket Andy promptly bowled another Jaffa in his next over which struck the batter plumb on the pads and the umpire had his finger raised before Andy could appeal. With the score on 19/2 after 4 overs Wilcot felt in control. Konrad and Jamie were brought into the attack, Jamie clearly knowing England are short a spinner for the Ashes he bowled to impress with some fantastic flight and turn. It didn’t take long to strike when in his second over the batter charged, missed and the stumping was made by the skipper behind. Konrad not wanting to miss out took the 4th wicket in his next over with a brilliant yorker striking the batsmen on the foot and the umpire giving it lbw again before any real appeal could be made! 55/4 from 10 overs. Jamie completed another wicket in his final over in a replica dismissal to the first clearly tempting the batsmen to go big! Wilcot newbie Eben Wheatley was brought into the attack and after luring the batsmen into a false sense of security with a wide delivery the next was hit straight into the hands of Jamie at square leg and Eben took his 1st wicket for the club. Wilcot felt positive and even though Marlborough College were scoring a few runs wickets were being taken and with only 1 dropped chance in the field all was going well. Rod Scott Donaldson took the next wicket in the 15th over LBW, 110/7, the next 5 overs toiled away and dot balls and boundaries where both seen, the last over saw Andy Smith come back in for his final and 3rd over and clearly buoyed by the others proceeded to take 2 more wickets ending his spell with some fantastic figures! Marlborough College ended up on 141/9 of the 20 overs.
WIlcot seemed positive and with no Mark Warburg the skipper was tasked with opening the batting with regular no.1 James Cox. Now James had spent the day at a charity clay shoot and reminded me that the bar was calling him with a nice cold pint, clearly he was not joking as 1st ball took middle stump. Warburgs big hitting apprentice Konrad was in at 3 promptly hitting a 4 of the first ball he faced. Unfortunately, Konrad clearly felt the pull of the bar and in the 3rd over was also bowled. The skipper blocked several balls before slapping a shorter delivery straight to the hands of a waiting fielder and we found ourselves 9/3 after 3 overs! Last week yu may remember that Andy Smith had promised the skipper some runs if he was moved up the order only to be given 1 ball to face. he made the same promise this week and Andy Smith was allowed up the order again and went in at 4 only to be caught out an over later. Andrew Marshall was at the other end and clearly felt he could rise to the occasion scoring a raft of singles before being bowled in the 12 over, during this Andrew had lost one batting partner in MFG and gained Sunday captain Jamie Watherston. The score was on 57/6 and Wilcots chances of their 1st midweek win were slipping away. With Jamie retiring on 31 the required runs were too far out of reach and 2 more wickets were lost and Wilcot ended their 20 overs with only 88 runs on the board.
The bowling and fielding were great from the team, but the opening batsmen did not pull their weight, unlike last season where the top 3 would always hit 30 runs each this season has seen run scoring be a struggle. Marlborough College proved to be a great opponent and next year we will be playing at the college as a new regular fixture.
| Batting | Runs | Out | Name | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets | |
| James Cox | 0 | Bowled | J. Cox | 3 | 0 | 19 | 0 | |
| Chris Powell | 2 | Ct | A. Smith | 3 | 0 | 12 | 4 | |
| Konrad Woodrow | 5 | Bowled | K. Woodrow | 3 | 0 | 11 | 1 | |
| Andy Smith | 4 | Ct | J. Watherston | 3 | 0 | 18 | 2 | |
| Andrew Marshall | 17 | Bowled | E. Wheatley | 2 | 0 | 33 | 1 | |
| MFG | 1 | Ct | R. Scott Donaldson | 3 | 0 | 30 | 1 | |
| Jamie Watherston | 31 | Not Out | Jonathan Evans | 3 | 0 | 15 | 0 | |
| R Scott Donaldson | 1 | Bowled | ||||||
| Jack Cox | 2 | Ct | ||||||
| Eben Wheatley | 0 | Not Out | ||||||
| Jonthan Evans | 1 | Not Out |