Nomads toil in the spring sunshine.

The Nomads arrived in a warm & sunny Wednesbury, looking to bounce back from the Easter Sunday defeat at Hilton CC; a pleasant departure from the usual dark & wet September conditions we've endured in recent years.
Captain Loxley, a fine tosser, elected to bat on what looked like a good deck with a particularly short boundary towards the houses ... however we never expected the demons lurking beneath. The opening 3 deliveries all doing something different; one grubber, one popping up & one swinging massively.
However, the Nomads openers of Gardner & Loxley navigated the conditions nicely until the later was bowled with a ball that nip back. Kareem came in at 3 and batted aggressively before being bowled around his legs, with a ball that hooped back wildly to clip the leg stump.
Mahmood came to the crease, on the back of his excellent knock at Allestree and saw the departures of Gardner & Singh in quick succession, which brought Bryars to the crease. Bryars played the perfect anchor role to Mahmood, who was scoring at will at this point, until Bryars was unfortunately ran out.
O’Brien, on his Nomads debut, came to the crease and promptly made his exit for golden duck, clean bowled! This brought Clenton out and played beautifully himself as he & Mahmood accelerated the scoring rate, potentially moving the Nomads into a strong position. However, Clenton was bowled before Parsonage became our second golden duck of the innings, who played on.
Gibson allowed Mahmood to continue playing however both would hole out on the long off boundary.
Mahmood top scored with 87 in our total of 182, which we thought could have been a useful score...

Any hopes of the pitch providing the Nomads with the same levels of assistance that Wednesbury received were short lived, as their overseas pro, Baxter smashed a quick-fire 52* (before retiring), being particularly brutal to Singh.
Mahmood continued his excellent all-round form, bowling Ro. Govind with a peach of a delivery in his spell of 6-0-33-1. Gibson came on and instantly was causing the Wednesbury batters' problems as he took 2 wickets in successive overs, however this brought Moeen Ali’s brother, Omar, to the crease, who after a shaky start began to open up as he got used to the Gibson & Cartwright bowling combination, that had begun to get a stranglehold on things.
O’Brien & Clenton came on after the drinks break and both bowled well and deservedly picked a wicket a piece; O’Brien getting his revenge on Jones, bowling him with a ball that hit the top of off stump – a Nomads debut wicket!
Wednesbury completed the 5-wicket victory, with 2 batters retired, in the 26th over. The explosive nature of Baxter & Ali taking the game away from the Nomads very quickly.

Result aside, the game was played in great spirits and thoroughly enjoyed by all. And one thing is for sure; the Gonad trophy is certainly going to be a hotly contested affair this year!

[Disclaimer: Any offence caused by this article is unintentional, any praise is well deserved]

Date: 27 April 2025
Start time: 1:00pm
Venue: Wednesbury
Competition: 40 overs friendly
Scores: Lichfield Nomads 182 v Wednesbury 186 for 5
Result: Wednesbury won by 5 wkts
Toss: Lichfield Nomads won the toss and elected to bat first.
Scorer: A. Gibson, P. Gardner and Opposition
Umpires: D. Cartwright, J. Loxley, P. Gardner, S. O'Brien, I. Kareem and Opposition.
Report: J. Loxley
Weather: Warm and sunny

30 April 2025