Lichfield Nomads Cricket Club : Match Reports 2004

Bishop's Tachbrook 165 for 8 (Marsh 79, Aitken, J 47*, Forster 2-10, Hughes 2-31, Coleman 2-45)
Nomads 108 all out (Hussein 27, Hughes 26,  Davis 3-4, Woodfield, N 3-21)

Nomads fail to bury the Bishop.

Nomads came unstuck at Bishop's Tachbrook, falling to a heavy bat and some long grass in a match arranged through The Bureau to replace the early withdrawal of Matlock.

Forster won the toss and inserted the opposition, opening with Heslington and Hughes. Heslington was bowling well into the wind and getting no luck at all as he repeatedly passed the outside edge on an artificial strip which offered some help to all the bowlers. Forster put down a tricky chance from Whitehead, wide to his left, which he would have hoped to take on pretty well every other occasion, maybe he was still thinking of the Caribbean sun on a very windy and occasionally damp afternoon. At the other end Hughes was also troubling the batsmen and the athleticism of Gardner and removed Gaught, taken low down in the covers by Pinfield. Gardner managed to leap high to take a rapid return from Hussein and ran out Whitehead before he had done too much damage and with Hughes removing Whiting, caught Coleman, Bishop looked to be in some trouble at 37 for 3. Now, however, Nomads’ depleted attack began to show as Hoddy and Blackburn started to suffer at the hands of Marsh. Forster brought himself on and although he slowed the scoring, nothing seemed to be getting through the batsmens’ defences and his switch to Greaves to float some into the wind also failed to pay off as both Marsh and Aitken struck solidly to the boundary. Eventually Heslington returned and suffered continued ill-luck with nicks and leading edges all evading fieldsmen. Coleman attempted to stem the flow but Marsh was still going strong. A sharp single to a ball dropped by Aitken’s feet proved Marsh’s undoing as Gardner ran around the stumps and whipped off the bails. Now Bishop’s began to struggle to maintain their previous pace as Forster, returning after Heslington completed his stint, and Coleman began to take wickets at the end but the damage had been done by a stand of 110 between Marsh and Aitken.

A stupendous tea (and biscuits with the drinks intervals) could not hide the fact that Nomads had let the initiative slip with maybe one seamer too few and the difficulty of containing well-set batsmen.

Gardner and Heslington tried to keep up with the required rate but the Bishop bowling was difficult to get away and Gardner soon perished for a fighting 17. Pinfield came and went quickly without troubling the scorers as he fell to a catch at point. Hussein joined Heslington who, after a slow start tried to lift the pace with a straight six, then a four. However he chased one too many wide ball in the need to raise the pace and was snapped up behind. Hussein battling away to regain his form with some time in the middle was joined by Hughes, who despite being dropped off a “dolly” was crashing away to his highest score of the season. Unfortunately all good tings come to an end and once Hussein had gone the fragile tail crumbled all too easily to bowling that was not particularly threatening, mainly in the attempt to get some respectability into the score, facing a lost cause. 

Four left and two down after four defeats on the bounce, Nomads now face an uphill struggle to deliver the curry, poppadums appear to be off and the waiters are looking down in the mouth. Perhaps with a strong team injected by youth we might suffer better fate over the remaining weeks, Nomads having fielded five players over 50 this weekend