Eltham CC

Match Report

Match report Eltham CC Vs Gravesend RF CC

Ah, the last game of the season, where grown men weep and their womenfolk rejoice, as the prospect of all those household jobs finally getting done becomes (potentially at least) a reality. On arrival at the ground, the weather certainly matched the despondent mood of the Eltham players, most of whom could foresee an imminent visit to their local B & Q. Colin Wouldham tries to make sense of it all...

A hastily arranged end-of-season game against Dulwich Wanderers had to be even more hastily rearanged to be a game against Gravesend, as Dulwich realised that having tried to help us out, they couldn't actually get a team out! Thanks for trying anyway guys, and thanks to Pete Fisher for hanging in there for one more week of website visits and phone calls. As it turned out, the weather conspired to turn against Eltham a little and made it hard to play the game as it should be played - ho hum! You can't win 'em all.

The last game of the season saw the Eltham team in unfamiliar changing rooms, to keep away from the massed ranks of effing and blinding footballers who were turning the hallowed Footscray facilities into something of a mudfest. Several of the Eltham players thought they were at Glastonbury. It was also noted that football and rugby referees were entitled to their own private shower - nice work if you can get it. Eltham are working over the winter to get the Coach his own keys to this private changing room in order to avoid further scandals involving benches and nuts next season.

The skipper actually won the toss, a rare event this season, and decided that Eltham had found their chasing mojo, and promptly put Gravesend in to bat. John Fisher did not seem satisfied with one sweater, since it was brass monkeys weather already and rain was most definitely in the air. Tanveer led Eltham onto the field, resplendent in his white fleece which some Eltham commentators have observed seems to cause him to bowl wides until he takes it off! Not on this occasion however, as he found length and line early on and caused problems almost immediately for the Gravesend batsmen. Once again, Tan bowled with great economy and not a lot of luck.

At the other end, Riklar (who toughed it out without a sweater, possibly because he never bought one) was bowling with his usual nagging line and length. This has been a breakthrough season for Ricky as a bowler and he should now be confident of his role in the Eltham bowling attack - keep the runs down and make the batsman make a mistake (it always works when I'm batting). On this occasion the batsmen didn't make any major mistakes and Ricky went wicketless, but that should not take away from yet another decent performance with the ball. Tan took one wicket in his allocated 7 overs (a short ball following something of a working over of the opener for a well made 33, which was well taken behind the timbers by Mr Redman), which meant that the game was pretty evenly poised following the opening spells.

Matt Rosenthal came on to replace Tan and started troubling the batsmen with some short-of-a-length bowling. Matt is a good find for Eltham, the only one of the new players to be at pre-season nets to be consistently available for us. With a bit more luck next year, more wickets will definitely come his way. After knocking over the other gravesend opener, Matt kept chipping away and returned very respectable figures, helping to prevent the run-rate from escalating.

At the "Riklar" end, the Coach came on with the game in the balance. Would this be the moment that the Gravesend players opened up and tried to take the game away from Eltham? Skipper Swain looked confident that the Coach would deliver, and deliver he did, using a bit more pace on the ball than he often does, to good effect. Derek removed the Gravesend no.3 with a thin edge to keeper Redman. A few boundaries followed, but Del kept his head and again kept the scoring down.

The decisive bowling change was yet to be made however, and skipperoo was scratching his head on who could come on, with his dodgy shoulder meaning he was out of the attack. His eyes strayed to point, who was enjoying a can of pop and an ice cream - yes, the unlikely figure of Matt Bevan was next up, and he did enough to suggest that he will not be so unlikely a figure in the Eltham bowling figures next year. 3 wickets for 15 off 5 overs tell their own story, all the result of good line, length and a big of Welsh sledging which had most observers looking confused. One of the wickets was a one handed leaping catch at deep cover from Richard Page, one of the contenders for catch of the season.

Wouldham came on at the other end with the Gravesend tail exposed and, along with Bevan who was frightening everyone at the other end, did his season's average no harm at all with a couple of cheap wickets. Pete Swain also took a catch, which meant that himself, Page and Wouldham would be sharing the spoils for most out-field catches this year (though we should halve Pete's number of catches since he puts himself in the best positions every week!)

So, a very gettable 141 all out for Eltham to chase.

Towards the end of the innings, a light drizzle had started which got progressively worse during tea. This was to make the rest of the match pretty horrible for all players.