After a good pre-season run in the Twenty20 cup, the serious business started on Saturday with the first game of the 2008 league championship.  Greenies Too faced UCCI in a game that we felt would be pivotal to the season. UCCI are a good young side with a couple of key players. Fortunately for Greenies, one of them, Ramon Sealy, was unavailable through illness. Even so, this looked to be a tough game to open with.

After losing the toss, Greenies were sent in to bat on a wicket that seemed to have been dropped in from Death Valley. Despite this, our openers Steve Smith and Tex got us to a solid start in the baking sun and in the face of a very tight opening attack, executing the game plan we discussed perfectly before Tex got himself out (caught?) in the 10^thover. This brought Craig Scott to the wicket, who started vigilantly, constructing a useful partnership with Steve before Steve holed out for a useful 26. Hugh Thompson, making his first appearance of the season, looked hungry for runs and with Craig hitting his straps, the pair accelerated the run rate brilliantly against a fairly decent attack, picking up ones and twos at will and targeting the bad balls ruthlessly. In a master class of one day batting, the two put on a partnership of 133 in 25 overs, with Hugh smacking 58 off 60 before making room for a fresh pair of legs. Dogga Dean continued the pace, with some exquisite stroke play, and can count himself unfortunate when a mix up in the middle left him yards out as his bails were removed. When Craig finally perished after reaching a highly entertaining 73, Greenies were looking well in control. A final flourish by Grover, Dickie Thomas and Ritchie Allen saw the total reach a huge 223 off the allotted 40 overs.

Adding salt to the wound, UCCI were docked an over for slow play, making an uphill task almost vertical.  Always fearsome with the new ball, Chris Troskie, opening up from the Crewe Road end let rip with a magnificent first ball, which the opener could only top edge straight back to the bowler. 0-1 after one ball, and the game seemed to be lost for UCCI.  Dickie Thomas, also swinging the new ball from the Jacques Scott end tempted the other opener to nick one behind in the second over, brilliantly snapped up by an off balance Grover, taking over the wicket keeping duties for the first time this season.

If Greenies thought the game was wrapped uphowever, Roach, at number 3, had other ideas. Taking to the bowling with relish, he single-handedly kept UCCI in with a sniff.  Sam Dawson in particular felt the wrath of Roach’s bat, being hit for 4, 6 and 4 (no ball) off his first 3 deliveries, extrapolating to a remarkable  strike rate of 750 runs per 100 balls (thanks Hugh for that stat).  While Roach was in, UCCI kept up the asking rate.  Adopting not to fight fire with fire, Greenies sought to starve Roach of the strike and ultimately forced him into a rash swing outside off stump, gratefully picked up by Grover for an excellent 48.

Greenies prolonged the game with some pretty shocking out-fielding – with less runs on the board, 6 dropped catches could well have cost them the match – however the writing was more or less on the wall once Roach had departed. Hugh Thompson, Dogga Dean and Craig Scott snuffed out any further challenge with some excellent wicket to wicket bowling.

UCCI eventually limped to 168 all out, and Greenies can move forward with confidence to the next game against Wellys.

Play of the Day - Dogga Dean’s outfield catch to remove the last vestige of resistance
Man of the Match - Hugh Thompson (who beat Craig Scott in a scull off for the honour)
COTD - Sammy Dawson for his opening 3 “mystery” balls