Worthians Cricket : 2010/11 Season Report
The start of the Worthians 2010/11 Cricket season was, unfortunately, thwarted by the weather – with our game against the School 1st XI on Speech Day being rained off.
We had better luck for our next game against John Denman’s Worth Occasionals however, and this turned out to be a competitive, enjoyable and very close game. The Occasionals batted first and amassed a competitive, but seemingly not insurmountable, total of 169. Ben Wright and Ed DeMott were the pick of the Worthian bowlers with three wickets each, although the Occasionals innings was propped up by a confident 58 from James Innes.
The Worthians batted well but lost wickets regularly. A spirited 41 from James Anthony, coming in at number 10, was not quite enough for us to reach the Occasionals total and our last wicket fell when we were just 3 runs short. Worthian, Max McAlister, who was playing for the Occasionals deserves a special mention here as it was probably his bowling that won the day for us – he took four wickets for only 15 runs from his 10 overs.
Our next game was against St Hugh’s College Oxford Old Boys. Both sides were a little short on numbers so we developed a new format, which we are calling “Quad 15”. Seven of us from each side gathered to play a 2 innings game of 15 overs per innings, with batsmen retiring at 30 and all fielders having a go at bowling. Having won the toss, the Worthians batted first and amassed a creditable 117 from their first innings of 15 overs, following a healthy opening stand from John Manning and Tom Woodman. However, nobody quite knew what a good total was in this innovative new format, and we found our score surpassed by St Hugh’s who managed to gain a 30 run lead after the first innings.
Some great hitting by Greg Russell in the second innings – and the Worthians were right back on track, with St Hugh’s needing to chase 90 in their second innings of 15 overs. We thought that we were unlikely to have enough runs on the board – but the pressure of the chase (and the fact that Tom Woodman was released from wicket keeping duties to turn his arm over) was too much for St Hugh’s who fell just 10 runs short.
And so victory was claimed by the Worthians team and, even though both sides were short on players, we managed to have a thoroughly enjoyable game in a fun new format!
In our final game of 2010 we took on St Chad’s College Durham Old Boys, captained by Worthian, Richard Gairdner. The Worthians batted first and an incredible innings of 133 from Greg Russell saw us to a total of 232. Greg took the Chad’s bowling attack apart, hitting no fewer than 11 sixes and 12 fours. St Chad’s put up a spirited effort but fell just short, reaching 212 all out. Six wickets from Tom Wright – and the game was ours for the taking.
So, two wins and one narrow defeat was a good overall return for the 2010 Season and, as I write, we have already started the 2011 season with our annual game against the School 1st XI. A great innings of 100 from John Manning saw the Worthians to 158 from their 25 overs. But the boys batted confidently and surpassed our total with two overs to spare.
We still have three matches left in 2011 with our normal fixtures against the Worth Occasionals, St Chad’s and St Hugh’s – when we hope to see a return to our winning ways!
New players are always warmly welcomed to the team, so please do get in touch with me, Simon Jones, at skjones@reedsmith.com if you are interested in playing for one or all of our matches.
Simon Jones (StB’98) – June 2011