cricket begins again

the new season for elmswell cricket club starts today with a game against stowmarket. really looking forward to it and will post on here later with the result etc. in the mean time check our our new club website at www.elmswellcricketclub.co.uk.

bill frindall 1939-2009

bill frindell mbe, the much loved voice of statistics on bbc radio 4's test match special has sadly died to the age of 69.

tms will never quite be the same without you 'bearders'.

cricket season over for another year

it's over! the cricket season is completed (stop cheering mrs p!).

the final game last sunday against cavendish wanderers ended in defeat but was notable for two things. firstly i scored a personal best of 34 batting at number three. the other thing being one of our players managed to hit a towering six straight through a team mate's car window!

all in all a pretty good season for elmswell c.c. as we finished fifth out of nine teams. i think next season with a bit more luck and some better weather we could push for another promotion.

for a full run down of the league table click here.

for the record, this season i played 11 matches, batted in 10 innings, with 1 not out, scoring a total of 127 runs at an average of 14.11 with a top score of 34.

elmswell c.c. update

when i last updated you elmswell c.c. were on a 3 match unbeaten run in the league. unfortunately that came to an end in a fairly close game against earl stonham which we lost by 26 runs. we got back to winning ways the following week with a 5 wicket defeat of nowton.

in august the weather took its toll and we were unable to play any league games, losing 3 chances to gain more valuable points.

our first game after the rainy season that is the english summer came last sunday against tendring park. we had lost to them earlier in the season in a fairly close game that we really should have won. however this match turned out to be even closer.

we won the toss and decided to bat first. it all looked pretty bad when we collapsed to 72 for 7 after only 29 overs. but a stand of 57 for the 8th wicket brought us home with a very respectable 129 for 7 from our 40 overs.

tendring park started well but lost wickets at fairly regular intervals throughout their innings. they steadied the ship and with 12 balls left they were 127 for 8 - 3 runs for victory!

the penultimate over went for just a single - 2 runs to win! the final over started badly with a no-ball. this tied the scores, but if scores were level we would win as we had lost fewer wickets. no runs were added as we came to the last two delivers of the game. dan, our young bowler, then pulled it out of the bag. two wickets, both clean bowled, with the last two balls of the game! what a finish, and at 8pm (it was dark!).

we are now safely in mid-table of division 3 with only one game to go next week against cavendish wanderers. then the bat and gloves get a well earned rest until next season.

elmswell c.c. make it 3 wins in a row

with two wins added to our record since i last updated things on the cricket front, we've now made it three wins in a row in the league.

a good performance with the bat (including a 24 from me!) saw us beat second place
cavendish wanderers by 3 wickets a fortnight ago.

then last week we were fortunate to accept a win on a very wet weekend as horringer had to concede the match due to them being unable to get a team together(not really a win i know but they all count).

tomorrow we play earl stonham in what could be a very close game in the battle for the second promotion place in division 3.

elmswell c.c. update

hello all,

i feel i have been neglecting my blog a bit so thought an update on the cricket situation was needed - so here goes.

on sunday 11th may we played edwardstone away and lost by the rather large margin of 6 wickets. we batted first but only managed to score 99 runs (i contributed with a second ball duck!). needless to say they didn't take long to knock those runs off (21.5 overs actually).

the following week (18/05/08) we were at home to bury st edmunds academy team and guess what? we lost again, this time by 31 runs.

now on 25th may we managed to avoid defeat against top of the table hadleigh. this was due to a great performance from the weather which meant the game was cancelled!

our next game was on 15th june at home against tendring park. they batted first and posted a good total of 193 for 3. we gave chase and game up 15 runs short. it was a real good effort considering we had a very depleted side.

now this week we got ourselves back to winning ways with a great performance against horringer. we won the toss and batted first. both opening batsmen scored over 50 and we finished on 168 for 5.

our bowlers then set about demolishing their innings and they finished 76 all out.

we're now in 6th place in the league with 9 games to go.

our next game is this sunday at home against 2nd place cavendish wanderers.

elmswell c.c. back to winning ways

elmswell cricket club got back to winning ways last sunday as we beat nowton cricket club. nowton batted first and we demolished them, all out for 74. we then made short work of our target and i didn't even get a chance to bat.

we're now sitting pretty in mid-table of division 3 after two games. next up its our first away game at edwardstone and the weather forecast looks like sunshine all they way!

off to a losing start

better late than never but i thought i'd post our result from last weeks cricket match.

earl stonham batted first and posted a score of 189 for 4 from their 40 overs. we bowled well and with a bit more luck we'd have had a few more wickets. i played pretty well behind the stumps and took two catches.

our innings was a tale of two halves. we raced to 100 runs off the first 20 overs and then had a bit of a collapse in the second 20 overs. after 40 overs we had reached 186 for 8, just short of the target. i hit a pretty good 13 runs in the rain.

overall not a bad result for our first game of the season and even thought we lost we picked up a few bonus points which always come in handy at the end of the season. we currently sit 5th out of 9 in division 3.

next game is against nowton at home. hopefully we can do a bit better this week and get a win this time. i'll let you know how we get on.

it's almost time

the new cricket season is almost here! ( i can just hear mrs p groaning in the background)

at 1:30pm on sunday we (that's elmswell cricket club) will begin our season with a home match against a team from earl stonham.

i'm really looking forward to it but at the moment i'm not getting too excited as the weather forecast is not too good. hopefully, all being well i will be able to put an update on hear with how we got on asap after the game.

also, i've put a little poll on this blog to find out how people think we're going to get on so feel free to cast your vote.

the sound of leather on willow

its getting closer, i can almost hear it, the sound of the new cricket season for elmswell cc looming on the horizon (can a sound loom on the horizon? well you know what i mean!).

our first match is a friendly against lavenham towards the end of april and i'm really looking forward to it. not sure if mrs p is but i think she secretly likes the lazy sunday afternoons watching us play.

this season we're in division 3 so things are going to be a bit tougher i think, and we've also decided to enter this seasons cup competition too just to spice things up a bit.

anyway, i'll be keeping a record of our games on here so be sure to come back every sunday night (or bit later in the week if i'm too tired to blog) to find out how we're doing.

wicket keeper with 10 broken fingers

in 45 years time i hope my hands don't end up looking like this guy's!

david morrison has kept wicket for his local village team, barton cc in north yorkshire, for almost half a century and has managed to break all his fingers and both thumbs.

in his younger days (when he wore only thin chamois gloves for protection) he was reluctant to seek medical attention for fear of losing his place so it was on with the frozen peas for a few minutes then back out on the field.

now, at the age of 62, he's still in the wars. last weekend he picked up both a darlington and district league championship medal and a black eye when a 16-year old leg spinner caught him unawares.

they certainly don't make'm like that anymore!

elmswell cricket club on the up (again!)

summer is coming to an end (if it ever started!) and with it the cricket season.
my team, elmswell cc, have managed to get promoted for the second season in a row. we finished second in the suffolk cricket league div 4, behind the very impressive team from hadleigh (although we did beat them at their place).

all being well, next season i should be playing from the start of the season so, weather permitting, i should get a few more games than this year. its going to be tough in division 3 as the standard will be a lot higher but i think we can rise to the challenge.

i don't like cricket...

...i love it! (or so goes that old song).

well last sunday was my first game for elmswell and i did pretty well. we lost the toss and were put into bat first. i was a bit shocked to be asked by the captain to bat at number 3 but i didn't really mind. i managed to score a fairly solid 15 runs which i was quite pleased with that. we got a grand total of 121 for 9 off 40 overs which we thought might not be quite enough, even though the pitch was playing very slowly after all the rain we'd had.

as the opposition were preparing to come out to bat we had a bit of a warm up and a couple of the guys were hurling balls at me to catch (i'm a wicket keeper by the way, that's not some kind of sick initiation thing they do to new players!) which was quite helpful really as it was a while since i'd kept wicket.

i made some pretty good stops and only let a few stray ones past me so i was very happy. we manged to bowl them out for 70 so it was a fairly convincing win in the end and i thoroughly enjoyed it.

adding that to previous results now means that we're top of the league and have an unbeaten run stretching back to the start of last season. no pressure then!

this weekend we've got two games (friendly on saturday and league game on sunday) so i'll post some results here afterwards.