Strollers return to winning ways
 
A century partnership between Bill Ward (64) and K***** S**** (53 not out) was the cornerstone of a three wicket victory by the Strollers over Salmagundi Gardeners on a sun-baked day. Debutant Ward harried the Gardeners’ bowling mercilessly, once dispatching opposition skipper Mike Fox for a 28-run over, while S**** never looked seriously in trouble during his second immaculate innings in the last two games.

On a day when the mercury touched 90 degrees, it looked like a good day to bat first. But skipper Boughey has never done things the conventional way and opted to bowl first having won the toss – while telling his disgruntled team mates he’d lost the toss for fear he’d be lynched and left staked out with tent pegs in the burning sun.

After 10 overs, no wickets and 80 runs on the board this didn’t look to have been one of the best decisions. Salmagundi openers played and missed with regularity but kept on going, despite facing the accuracy of Kelvyn S**** in his first appearance for the Strollers this season.

But the Strollers stuck to their task manfully and generally the fielding was better than veterans had any right to expect. A double bowling change brought the breakthrough: Lucas coming on for Boughey and Holmes for S****. And that combination conspired to dismiss opener Frow on 47 with Graeme flinging himself to his left to take a breathtaking slip catch; yes, you did read that correctly. “Breathtaking” and “slip catch” are not words one often finds in the same sentence in a Strollers report, but it did happen.

Lucas shortly thereafter had fellow opener Tait caught and bowled, and the wickets began tumbling with regularity. Holmes bowled with usual accuracy plus variation and took another great catch in the slips off Jackson to get rid of the opposition skipper. Yep, there we go again: “great catch” and “slips” in the same sentence just to confuse the reader.

Jackson enjoyed a very profitable spell down the hill, taking a fourfer, with natural inswing and the occasional beamer just to confuse the batsmen. And then another remarkable thing happened: the Strollers ran out a batsman, Gav gathering the ball confidently and Mikey taking off the bails with ease.

174 all out didn’t seem like an insurmountable target on an gentle wicket with fast outfield, but Strollers would have been in difficulty without the batting of Bill Ward and K*****. And hereby hangs a story: Ward would not have played had there not been a slight contretemps between captains about the fielding of a substitute fielder reminiscent of the Ashes last summer. It’s too tedious to relate in detail, and anyway the writer had forgotten the salient facts, but the upshot was Mikey called his brother and got him to come along and play. Very good for the Strollers he did.

After scoring only four a relatively easy stumping chance was missed off Ward in a manner that would have been familiar to Geraint Jones. Another slice of luck for the Strollers that was rewarded by a swashbuckling 64 from Ward. S**** played the consummate opening innings and at one stage it looked as if these two would see the Stollers home. However, Ward played on and there were some anxious moments as wickets fell. As Gav later remarked, “We are the Strollers after all.” But the damage had been done and S**** glanced the winning boundary with 7.3 overs to spare.

Simon Boughey
03.07.06

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