Eltham CC

Match Report

Match report Eltham CC Vs Petts Wood CC

The first game of the season and an early scare for the Fixture Secretary Pete Fisher when the recent heavy rains forced Footscray to declare that they couldn't prepare a pitch. Thankfully our opposition were able to switch the game to their own home ground - many thanks lads, it would have been a terrible shame not to have played on such a gloriously sunny day.

On to the game itself, and Eltham were looking decidedly under par. Only ten players, and of those, Colin had a chest infection and was looking somewhat wobbly, and Redders had been battling a bout of food poisoning which gave first slip some early concerns as Andy crouched for the first ball of the season. Thankfully some more energetic players were on display - Elliot Swain, looking about a foot taller than last year, was helping out, and Gam Gurung, who had impressed in per-season nets, was making his debut.

Toby, skippering for the day in the absence of either of the club captains (Gary - knackered back; Ricky - under the thumb) won the toss and elected to field first to much chuntering given the lovely hot weather, on a low, slow wicket. Gam and Elliot opened the bowling and both were soon amongst the wickets, with good catches from Colin at first slip to remove both openers, and a dolly for Andrew at gully. Colin bowled a tight spell of leg-spin, with a nice catch from Greg at square leg giving him his only success. He only kept going for his final over as his dad had just arrived with his sister and he wanted him to see his son bowling - so he was somewhat aggrieved to ask him at drinks if he'd seen the wicket, only to be told he'd been too busy deciding where to sit! Toby looked threatening with his off-breaks but without any luck on this occasion. Matt Bulpitt, recovering from a nasty eye injury, claimed to be seeing 8 stumps, but thankfully he bowled in their general direction. Matt's eyesight is currently giving him depth perception problems and this was evident on a total dolly of a caught and bowled which he made look much more difficult than it really was as his eyes couldn't adjust to where the ball was. He somehow clung on to it - but all was forgiven, particularly later when he plucked an absolute ripper of a one-handed catch down to pure reflexes - great stuff Matt, an early contender for catch of the season.

The middle order for Petts Wood led something of a recovery, with Cook particularly proving to be the glue that they needed. However, it always seemed hard to score on this pitch, and the Eltham bowlers never felt under pressure. Gam came back on to wrap up the tail, with the assistance of Matt at the other end, and 95 all out felt like a very gettable target.

The pitch proved equally difficult to bat on for Eltham as it had for Petts Wood. Pete Fisher, in an attempt to increase the scoring rate, chipped one up to mid-wicket for 5. Greg was looking limpet-like at the other end though with allowed Pete Swain to ty to take the bull by the horns with a breeze 26 that seemed to have put Eltham well on their way until he was caught in front of the stumps and given LBW. By this time, Matt then came and went for 8, not knowing which of the three balls he could see to hit. Andrew, as tradition dictates, had departed for a first duck of the season . At five wickets down and still 20-odd to win, Colin and Redders were starting to fear that they were going to have to get involved - but were grateful that Toby and Elliot came together to make the first truly dynamic partnership of the match. First, Elliot clipped a beautiful four through mid-wicket, followed by a glanced four down to fine leg, and then Toby clobbered a large six over long-off. With the scores level, Elliot hit the winning boundary to get us on our way for 2018 - and to register his highest score for Eltham so far (plenty more where that came from though Elliot!)

There was some consternation expressed by Pete Swain at the end of this match at the amount of "product" being used by Redders on his hair after his shower. Andy himself seemed unphased by this, claiming to have used this "product", which turned out to be wax, for years. We hope that this does not motivate Swainy to turn up next week with the Grecian Two Thousand.

Huge thanks to Petts Wood for getting the ground for us to play on - we hope you enjoyed the game as much as we did. Well played to Gam on a great debut, we hope you get many more wickets this season.