Woodburners get their revenge

Having missed the final midweek fixture of the season, my arch cricketing rival, Neil Morely, kindly stepped in with the following report from North West Water's clash with The Woodburners at Llandrinio:

I don't recall signing on any dotted line to agree to write a report on our devastating triumph last week, after your deplorable no-show.

However I can, for a substantial fee, tell you what I remember.It was, in fact, an excellent game played in a good spirit but terrible, though temporarily dry, weather. Your lot chose to bat first, correctly assuming that most of our age-impaired batsmen would be unable to see the ball after about 7.30.

A cunning tactic that almost worked. You were without Carl and Justin but, to make up for that, you weren't playing either.Dan sat it out through injury but umpired (very well).

Basically, as I recall, NWW batted well after a sluggish but steady start. Star man was Ian, who carried his bat for (I think) 49. Whacked the ball with great abandon on the leg side. A couple of the young lads also did well (Steve's son?). Steve himself hit a few of what can only be described as lusty blows, including a big six.

His dismissal was a bizarre classic. Ian hit a Dave Harris ball hard back to the bowler. Dave tried and failed to take what would have been an excellent catch, but in so doing inadvertently diverted the ball on to the stumps at the bowler's end, where poor old Steve was out of his ground.

We bowled quite steadily, and nobody got hammered (well, not before we got to the pub, anyway). Final score (approx): 114-5 after 15 eight-ball overs.Luckily for us, Dave Chirk (where he comes from: don't know his surname) did an Ian and (I think) carried his bat for 54 or so.

My good self opened with him and made my season's top score - a massive nine. Clearly the major player in an opening stand of 36.Run rate-wise, we started and finished well, but in the middle seven or eight overs your bowlers pegged us back and got among the wickets. Alec White and Hal Harries were the main support batsmen to Dave.

In the end, we got there with about 12 balls to spare and about six wickets down.

As usual, it was a close match played in a good spirit. With the weather like it had been all day, it was just brilliant that we managed to get a game. By the end, the light was seriously tricky for batsmen and fielders.