This weekend we welcomed Locksbottom to the Ex Blues Ground and whilst there were numerous regulars missing – including Messrs Cooper, Thomas and Fitch at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, as well as Mr Loughlin taking a well-earned break in the Balearics (less painful than it sounds) – the Ramblas did have a more familiar look to them as we saw a pair of Danks (Alex and Doug), a trio of Fords and even a Parrett returning to the line-up.
Unfortunately, as can often be the case, we were just shy of the full XI and only fielded 10 players to the opposition’s full complement.
There was much deliberation from this week’s captain, Sam Ford, prior to the game over whether to take to the field and look to chase a target or to don the pads and get runs on the board for the bowlers to defend. On discussion with his vice-captain for the day, Alex Danks, the decision was taken to bowl assuming we won the toss.
With the toss won the Ramblas took to the field and threw the ball to Ed Gibbs, who after his excellent performances recently was raring to get amongst the Locksbottom openers. Opening at the opposite end we had Doug Danks who was tasked with controlling the run rate and giving the batsmen plenty to think about.
The Locksbottom openers started brightly, but Ed Gibbs struck in his second over, bowling Cutting for just six runs. Meanwhile, Deadly Doug bowled with the kind of consistency we have come to expect of him and was unlucky not to see any wickets fall during his spell. Gibbs continued to beat the bat on occasion and was unlucky not to see further wickets before being replaced by Rich Ford.
What followed from Rich Ford were four mesmerising overs in which he took two wicket maidens, dismissing Mason R with a fine catch pounced on by D. Danks for eight runs and then Yamball leg before for no runs. At the end of his first four-over spell, our oldest Ford had managed figures of two wickets for just six runs which had dealt with a number of the top order batsmen and kept the scoring down, especially considering that the Locksbottom opener Mason D was steadily amassing runs with some powerful strokeplay, regularly reaching the boundary.
Some smart captaincy from Ford meant that the Ramblas were able to turn some of Mason’s lustier blows from fours to singles by placing fielders at deep mid-off and deep mid-wicket. It should be noted that a feature of the Ramblas best efforts were in the field where all players were looking sharp despite being a man down.
Into the attack came Parrett and whilst he showed glimpses of his old self it showed that he’d not had the benefit of regular bowling in recent weeks having been limited to only a handful of appearances.
Pete Ford joined the attack in the hope of dislodging the Locksbottom batsman of P. Stachini and Mason who were beginning to put together a decent partnership with Mason reaching his half century and looking like he was unlikely to be dislodged.
After a couple of overs from P. Ford, Gibbs rejoined the attack in an attempt to give the batsmen something more to think about. Sadly there was no breakthrough in his remaining overs and the captain brought some pace into the attack by bringing on Alex Danks for a rare outing in the bowling attack.
Our youngest Danks immediately forced the batsmen into retrieving their helmets from the pavilion and saw a number of balls rapidly passing the batsmen into the keeper’s gloves.
The captain then brought himself on to bowl in tandem with Danks and also chose to bowl off his longer run to keep the pressure on the batsmen. This turned out to be a great decision when Ford managed to clip the top of Mason’s stumps with a ball that fizzed through him.
Stachini was joined at the crease by Kennell who initially didn’t look a significant threat to the Ramblas attack. A. Danks was replaced late in the innings Pete Ford who in his final over saw P. Stachini launch the ball back over his head but fall short of the boundary being caught by Rudgyard at a very deep mid off.
Rich Ford took the ball for the final over of the innings and took the wicket of Stachini H with his first
ball, bowling the batsman for just the single run. At this point, Rich was looking at figures of 3/6 from 4.1 overs. Sadly, for the bowler the two batsmen managed to find the boundary from three of his final five balls, adding a further 19 runs to his statistics with Kennell hitting a pair of sixes off his last two balls.
Locksbottom finished on 200-6 and given that the Ramblas were a man short in the field they were not too disappointed with the total and felt it was one they could chase down.
Tea was then taken and our thanks go to Mrs Cooper, who had officially retired from providing hungry cricketers with interval sustenance the previous season but came to our rescue when it was realised that nobody had been volunteered for sandwich duty this week. As always the tea was to the high standards that have been set by Mrs Cooper and it’s fair to say that there were very few leftovers.
Turning to the Ramblas chase, Alex Danks and Matt Rudgyard opened, the first time that the Ramblas have turned to this partnership. The innings started well with A. Danks in very good form, taking the attack to the opening bowling partnership of Stachini S and Lott, dispatching Statchini to the boundary for three consecutive fours before perhaps taking one risk to many and not timing a shot that was caught by Kennell at mid-off leaving A. Danks to have only scored 14 on a day where he could have expected a big total. Rudgyard was joined at the crease by Haydn Evans who was making his second consecutive appearance for the Ramblas.
Rudgyard struggled to get to grips with the Locksbottom attack and whilst he’d taken his time to try to get a foothold was given leg before not playing a shot to a ball that he’d expected to pass further down the leg side. The umpire had little choice but to raise the finger and send Rudgyard back to the pavilion having scored the first duck of his Ramblas career. Dave Gambie was next out of the hutch, but the partnership with Evans lasted only a short time as Evans was next out bowled by Stachini for two.
Gambie was joined in the middle by Parrett and both set about steadying the ship, which was achieved for a while but at the expense of the run rate drying up significantly. The pressure from the Locksbottom bowlers of Cox and Halton eventually told, with Parrett being caught by D. Mason after skying a ball straight up – the fielder very cool under pressure as the ball took an age to fall from the heavens due to the power Parrett had put into the shot.
Pete Ford was next in and his innings lasted only three balls when he was caught by H Stachini for four having mistimed a shot that looked to be heaved out of the county.
The captain Sam Ford was next to the crease knowing that he would need a big innings if the Ramblas were to get close to the score posted by Locksbottom. Ford soon got his eye in and was finding the boundary with some regularity and for some time was ably supported by Gambie who had begun to find his touch and accumulate some runs.
Unfortunately, in another case of mistiming, Gambie fell for 18 runs whilst trying to force a ball to the boundary but only finding the top edge and the ball popping up to be caught by P. Stachini.
Rich Ford was next in to join the captain and the hopes of a father-son partnership taking the Ramblas to an astonishing victory was briefly on the cards. Unfortunately only too briefly, as R. Ford was bowled by Halton for four. The skipper was running out of partners quickly and the Ramblas innings was beginning to look doomed.
With only Doug Danks and Gibbs left to bat the time for something special had arrived and Sam Ford ably supported by Doug set about the Locksbottom attack with gusto. The ball began to reach the boundary with regularity and the Locksbottom bowlers were beginning to look more than a little nervous.
Sadly, D. Danks was bowled by Stachini for nine, with the Ramblas score at 81-7. With just Gibbs to bat, the Ramblas were in the last chance saloon. This seems to bring out the best in both of the batsmen with Gibbs ably holding up his task of staying in the innings and S. Ford looking to take the bowlers to task as often as he got the opportunity.
The hope of chasing down the target set by Locksbottom was beginning to look like it could happen and both Gibbs and Ford were enthusiastic about the chances of pulling off a staggering recovering.
The required run rate was getting close to 10 runs per over, but the Ramblas were quickly running out of overs with this in mind Ford increased the tempo quickly reached his half century. With only four overs and still needing 60 runs, Ford realised that he had no other choice than to go all out for the remaining runs. Unfortunately this was his downfall and probably with the first mistake of his innings he found himself bowled by Lott.
The Ramblas, despite the efforts of Ford, Danks and Gibbs were all out for 141. And here’s the full scorecard.
Whilst disappointed to have lost once more this season, all of the players came away from the game with some level of satisfaction for their individual performances and from a great finish.
Ramblas MVP: Choosing the MVP was not easy as there were some notable performances, not least from Rich Ford for his three-wicket haul, Ed Gibbs for another good performance with the ball in hand and for supporting his skipper for the final wicket and finishing 11 not out. However, for his dismissal of Locksbottom’s dangerous opener at a crucial time, his decision-making in the field to keep the runs down to 200 and for his captain’s innings, making 60 from 44 balls the Ramblas man of the match goes to Sam Ford.
And just one final point to mention, you’ll have noticed the lack of updates during the match on our Whatsapp feed, as well as the lack of photographs within this report. This just demonstrates the excellent work that Lucy Brewer puts in on a weekly basis and how much she is missed when she is not with us. Thanks Lucy and we look forward to welcoming you back in a couple of weeks.