Eltham CC

Match Report

Match report Eltham CC Vs Old Pilotonians CC

Oh. My. Good. Gawd!

For those with a nervous disposition, please look away now. This was a horrendous display from a decent Eltham line-up where anything that could go wrong, did. We were thoroughly outplayed by a good Pilots team, but there is no way we should be losing to anyone like this!

Stand-in Skipper Matt Bulpitt (Captain Gary Bill was allegedly attending the Bromley HairHat Studio for some sort of Rug Weave treatment) lost the toss and Eltham found themselves fielding against an always-strong Pilots batting side. Tan bowled well and removed one of the openers in a fiery opening spell, but at the other end Rob Cooke was looking in fine form, waiting for the bad balls and also for the slow pitch. His partnership with Farid (only stopped for a while when Farid managed to top edge the ball onto the bridge of his nose, resulting in claret everywhere) was the defining one of the match, both players getting well-deserved fifties. In truth, the Eltham fielding was not up to scratch - Wouldham, Bulpitt and Swain all dropped chances they would all have expected to hold on to - but the batting was also good. Cooke did ride his luck with a few charges at Wouldham, being lucky to escape an LBW shout and also narrowly avoiding being bowled on a couple of occasions - but you make your own luck in this game and his 90 was good to watch if you were a neutral!

Tan and Pete Swain got a couple of late wickets meaning that at least their figures were respectable - the other bowling figures were not much to write home about!

Tea was a very pleasant affair and I'm wishing I could stop the report there! But in the interests of completeness, Eltham's innings needs a few words (and that's all it should take!) Some inexplicable missing of straight balls from a number of players meant that wickets fell regularly and quickly. Al Roberts was hampered by not being able to move after hurting his leg in the pre-match warm-up, and skipper Bulpitt forgot to ask for a runner! Al's words to Colin, his batting partner, of "I can't run at all so unless we can walk, don't bother!" will haunt Colin for some weeks! Not what you want to hear at 23-7!

Eltham batsmen were being bowled with such regularity that you would have been forgiven for thinking that Woody Woodpecker was in attendance. The final coup de grace saw Andy Redman playing probably the shot of the Eltham innings and deciding that it was good enough to run a second on, despite being in the fielder's hand, and being run out by half the pitch!

So - 25 all out - a dreadful, dreadful performance. Apologies were proferred to the Pilots, who deserved a more competitive match. The batsmen WILL do better in the next match.

Reporting: Colin "Shell-shocked" Wouldham