Daubly out for the season?

Rumours persist that all-rounder Steve Daulby's season could be over after suffering a freak achilles injury while moonlighting for Gresford.

The pacy left-armer and hard-hitting batsmen didn't turn out for North West Water last night, with sources close to the player claiming he might not play again this season.

It follows a series of controversies involving the player after he failed to turn up to a team bonding session. Daulby claimed he had to spend time in the garden instead, sparking rumours of dressing room unrest.

But one player, who asked not to be named, said today: "We're gutted for Steve. On his day, he's our Andrew Flintoff, even if his running between the wickets is a bit suspect at times. Hopefully he'll be back before the end of the season, we could certainly do with him."

We won!

Well, we finally got our season under way with a hard fought victory in a close encounter with a new side – the Ellises.

Our victory was largely down to two fine individual performances, one from the increasingly important Rory Jones and the other from skipper Justin Evans, whose three wickets late on turned the game decisively in our favour.

We batted first, having only managed to assemble a team of ten and I was an unwilling starter having come down with a nasty dose of man flu (and of course I was feeling very sorry for myself, snorting and sniffing my way through our warm up.

Anyway, we got off to a decent start through Mike Stokes and Geraint Jones, before Rory, who had suffered a blow to the head during a school match earlier in the day, went in at number four with Steve Daulby. Steve rattled his way to 15 with a succession of boundaries before losing his wicket.

I then joined Rory, who was playing well against a real mixed bag of bowlers. Although I was still feeling sorry for myself, I made 14 before attempting a suicidal second and running myself out for the second time this year. The score was around 90 at that stage with around three overs to go and, thanks to fine attacking shots from Rory, we ended our innings on 123 with Rory going for 40 off the final ball of the innings. That gave us our largest total of the season and definitely something to bowl out.

I opened the bowling with Huw and, after a decent first over, I had a horrible second (going for 10, I think). Fortunately, Huw was more successful taking a wicket in each of his two overs as we started to put pressure on our opponents.

Jimal then produced a fine spell and, along with his brother, Liam, who turned out at very short notice, we made sure were still very much in the game at the half way point. However, we were having difficulty with one of their batsmen, who escaped three difficult catches and while he was at the crease, they always looked favourites.

Thankfully, Justin – who had been keeping wicket – stepped up to remove him, quickly followed by two more wickets to give us victory by 10 runs.

It was a great win – hopefully to be followed by a few more....

Gardening or cricket... that's the question

Well, our scheduled match against JT Hughes at Whittington on Wednesday failed to materialise after the opposition failed to raise a side.

So we decided instead to organise a practice match involving as many of our own players as possible. In the event, 10 of us turned up and we enjoyed a decent night's cricket.

There was, however, one very notable absentee: Steve Daulby, who chose to garden - that's right, garden - rather than play cricket. Now I'm all for gardening, it's almost certainly the new rock and roll, but in a choice between cricket and gardening there can only ever be one winner. And it's definitely not gardening.

Thankfully I'm not North West Water's skipper, but I'm sure Justin will want to sit down with Mr Daulby and have a serious chat about his commitment to the sport. If you think Andrew Symmonds has problems...

Anyway, as for the game itself, we batted in pairs for eight overs. Top score when to father and son duo Huw and Rory Jones, with Rory displaying some very imaginative shots in a swashbuckling performance. They waltzed their way to a total of 60, beating mine and Dave Ryder's 57, the next best score. As you can imagine, any partnership that involves me is somewhat more sedate, but Dave showed a more flamboyant side to his batting, unleashing a series of fine straight drives.

Other highlights included Brian Cole's return - and a fine spell as wicketkeeper which resulted in half a dozen stumpings courtesy of Dale Penrose's willingness to charge down the wicket. Justin batted with his usual aggression and struck some meaty blows in his innings, while I committed the cardinal sin, dropping a sitter after Geraint Jones - who bowled very impressively - failed to connect properly with one of his brother's rapid deliveries.

Speaking of Rory, I faced him during my innings and I can confirm that he's developing into a very nippy bowler indeed; it bodes well for the future of North West Water.

All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and useful evening. It's just a shame Mr Daulby couldn't join us...

The curry night

As promised, a picture of our curry night at the end of April. I always find it helps to put names to faces so, from left, are: Dave Ryder, Justin Evans, Steve Daulby, Ian Lloyd and Huw Jones.

The curse of BT

I used to play for BT in my (much) younger days. They're a good side and, since I've been playing for North West Water, I can count the number of times we've beaten them on one hand.

It was with some trepidation then that I approached last night's encounter at Oswestry School, my first outing of the season. My worries were well-founded, we ended up being beaten comfortably despite getting into a very good position half way through their innings.

Again we fielded a slightly weaker side than usual - Gareth and Brian Cole, Carl Dulson and Huw and Geraint Jones - were all unavailable, which meant our task was that much harder.

I have to say that I was pretty nervous before the game. I blame my brother. A couple of weeks ago we had a conversation about how sensible it is to keep taking part in team sports as you get older. Basically, my brother Baz - who plays football not cricket, by the way - was saying he was worried he had lost his pace. I know the feeling; as I said in my final blog of last season, it's not much fun struggling to find any kind of form and it does make you wonder if you've lost whatever scrap of ability you once had. So when the first ball of my spell disappeared back over my head - landing just short of a six - I almost retired on the spot. More of that later...

Back to the game, we won the toss and batted first with the ever-elegant Dave Ryder and rising star Rory Jones starting strongly. They added 30-odd for the first wicket at a decent pace before Rory departed and our collapse started.

First Mike Stokes and then a helmeted Steve Daulby were dismissed, before skipper Justin Evans attempted to steady the ship with some powerful strokes. Unfortunately his time at the crease was cut short and I arrived at the wicket with Dave still holding the innings together.

Dave was the next man out, our eagerness to take quick singles leaving him stranded in the middle of the pitch, as I went on to notch up 11 before attempting one quick single too many and finding myself a few yards short. To be honest, I felt pretty good at the crease - better than I had done for some time - and, if I could just work out to score off my legs, I might have made a useful contribution.

By this point, Jamal Penrose and Dave's son Dominic were at the wicket and we limped on, edging towards 80 before Jamal was out and Ian Lloyd - a late arrival due to confusion over dates - arrived and took us to 83 before being caught out with the last ball of the innings.

That total didn't look like being enough, especially when I opened the bowling and my first delivery was smashed to long on. However, I managed to redeem myself by bowling four dot balls before having Phil James caught by Jamal at square leg. As if by magic, all thoughts about retirement disappeared, even if it wasn't the greatest dismissal of my career.

Ian took the new ball at the other end and bowled their other opener with his first delivery. It was a great start and we suddenly sniffed a chance. I bowled another couple of overs - ending with figures of 1-11 - while Ian was even more miserly at the other end.

When Steve picked up a third wicket leg before - beating their man for pace - we were looking good. After 10 overs, they were 35-odd for three and we were in a promising position. Steve was bowling as well as he has done for some time - he's quick and, being left handed, he causes problems for most batsmen.

Justin was unlucky not to pick up a wicket with his teasing leg spin, but BT consolidated through brothers Ant and Gareth James, before the latter unleashed a flurry of boundaries to take his side to victory with three overs to spare.

It was a desperately disappointing end to the match for us. We'd done well for so much of the game but our total was again a little bit below a decent score and, to be fair to BT, they paced their innings just right.

So it's on to the next game - Cae Glas at our home ground, Whittington, next Wednesday. Hopefully our fortunes will take a turn for the better.

The season's under way

Well, after around seven months of inactivity (with the exception of a couple of curries and a net session), the season got under way last night against the Orthopaedic.

Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on your point of view - I didn't make the game (it's a long story, but essentially it boils down to the fact that I can't use a fax machine). And I'm not being unduly modest when I say that I'm pretty sure my presence would have had no impact on the result. Having said that, our team was without several other key players, including the likes of star batsmen Brian Cole and Carl Dulson and Brian's ever-reliable father, Gareth.

On an extremely windy evening and with the usual early-season uneven bounce of the Orthopaedic wicket, we struggled to 65-odd all out. According to my sources, we only managed a couple of boundaries in our innings - courtesy of our two big hitters, skipper Justin Evans and the mercurial Steve Daulby.

In reply, we bowled well but the total was 25 runs short and the Orthopaedic made it with overs to spare and eight wickets in hand. Jamal Penrose, who opened the bowling with Steve, and Justin took the wickets. Justin's was (and I quote from Justin here) 'a beautiful piece of leg spin bowling'.

Next week we play BT at Oswestry School on Tuesday night. Hopefully we'll kick-start our season with victory...

A battling defeat

As I said in yesterday's post, North West Water lost to BT on Tuesday evening on a difficult pitch at Oswestry School.

We won the toss and batted but made slow progress in the first ten overs, despite some dogged resistance from our opening pair Pete Danby and Rory Jones.

Rory continued his fine form with the bat, producing a couple of superb boundaries, while Pete showed a deft touch to keep things ticking over in the face of some accurate, hostile bowling.

The pitch didn't help. There had been plenty of showers during the day and the pitch cut up pretty quickly, which made the bounce more uneven than usual. One delivery even reared up and hit Rory on the helmet.

We continued to struggle throughout the innings, despite a cameo innings from Steve Daulby, who crashed a couple of boundaries before departing. I ended up going in with a couple of overs left and ended on four or five not out, but not before almost gloving a catch to mid on and then falling flat on my face trying to set off for a quick single. I really must invest in some spikes.

We ended on 78 and, in truth, it was always 20 short of a competitive total. We bowled tightly for most of their innings, with our skipper, Justin Evans, bowling economically and taking another wicket with his increasingly effective leg spin.

I opened the bowling and was given four straight overs, taking one for nine. It was the best I'd bowled for ages, although my wicket came from a wide ball that was knicked through to the agile Pete Danby behind the stumps. It was probably my worst delivery, but as I'd beaten the outside and inside edge of both batsmen a couple of times, and had one ball sail over middle stump, I felt I'd earned it.

Steve Daulby also bowled a good spell, taking one wicket and instigating a run out, to leave BT needing 26 off the last four overs. At this stage it looked like it could be a close finish, but BT hit back through a tall left-hander, who simply demolished our attack. They ended up winning with two overs to spare.

It was a disappointing end to a decent match. We're now turning our attention to the rematch with BT next Tuesday, followed by Shropshrie Health at Whittington on Wednesday. We need a win.

We won... and I wasn't even there to see it

As regular readers of this blog will know, it's not often we win.

Therefore, I was gutted to miss out on our victory last week owing to my week's holiday in Zakynthos.

I'd like to provide full details of our victory over JT Hughes but, unfortunately, the only info I've got to go on is sketchy, having been provided by our left arm fast bowler and prolific batsman, Steve Daulby.

I'll leave Steve to sum up the performance:

"Thrashed em last week!

They had 2 x innings and still didn’t reach our total of 122.

Batting a lot better – off the mark at last. A magnificent seven before being clean bowled by Greg or was it Ryan. It would still be rising now if I’d connected though – two overs to go so start hitting out I said!"