After a really close game earlier on in the season where Tanmay and Ankur came so close to delivering the goods, Didsbury went to Wilmslow looking to do one better than last time.
Bowling first, Sam and Ralph shared the new ball. As he has all season, Ralph’s relentless line and length soon paid dividends, bowling one of their openers early on. Their other opener continued to score well, but Henrik bowled their number three early on to keep the pressure on. From here, Wilmslow built steadily, and it took their opener retiring out for Didsbury to make their next breakthrough. Will was far to fast and accurate for the new batsman who was dismissed for a three-ball duck.
Jimmy bowled well and was rewarded with a wicket, caught by Will with a good catch. From here, Didsbury began to look a little ragged in the field, dropping a few difficult chances, conceding a couple of overthrows and byes and ended up giving away some unnecessary runs. Wilmslow finished their 36 overs 179-5, a very competitive total.
With the bat, Vinny and Jimmy opened and made a positive start before Vinny crunched the ball to a fielder, taking a very good catch to dismiss him with 13 on the scoreboard. From here, it was all about the brilliant partnership between Jimmy and Will against bowling that included several 2s players. They put on a brilliant 77, finding the boundary regularly, before Jimmy was finally dismissed after being tied down by some really tricky spin bowling. Will maintained the impetus with Adi before falling LBW for 44, before Adi was caught a few overs later.
This led to a rebuilding job between Andy and Anthony, who worked well to rotate the strike around, building a solid partnership. At 145-4, Didsbury were on top in their pursuit of Wilmslow’s 179 with plenty in the tank, even if the run rate was starting to creep up. It was at this stage when Anthony was caught off a no-ball, and Andy not realising it was a no-ball ambled a single and was mightily surprised when he discovered that it was not Anthony who was out but himself, ran out. This unfortunate event brought Henrik to the crease, who muscled Didsbury back in front with several boundaries including a glorious 6. When he picked out a fielder after a very handy 17, it brought the skipper to the crease with 11 needed from the final 10 balls. To my immense surprise, a leg side pie allowed me to start off with a boundary and things were looking good. It could only go downhill…
The next ball was nearly identical, but somehow the ball was top edged, and the skipper sprinted a single in the hope of a drop. His wish was granted, but Anthony couldn’t make his ground and was ran out by a mile. This was not to be the last run out instigated by the captain. Sam knocked the ball short and darted for the single, but a very sharp direct hit cut his innings short. With Ralph coming to the crease for the final over with 6 needed, two dot balls piled on the pressure and on the third ball the captain called through for a single that was never on, with Ralph being left no chance of making it through.
With only 10 men, Henrik came back out to bad as number 11 and took a single off the penultimate ball, leaving the captain on strike for the final ball. All he could do was club the ball to a fielder and run a single, leaving us agonisingly short of a revenge victory against Wilmslow.
It took me several days to reflect on the game. Firstly, joint men of the match Jimmy and Will were fantastic with the bat with a really mature partnership that carried Didsbury a long way in the run chase. Secondly, be very wary when batting with me, as instigating three run outs isn’t ideal! But crucially, it highlighted the importance of maintaining standards for the entirety of an innings, with those fielding mishaps at the end of the Didsbury bowling effort costing a crucial 10 runs which in the end were just out of reach.
Overall, it was once again a Friendlies game played in the right way, hard but fair, competitive but respectful to both teammates and opposition. In a word Friendly, but in all the right ways.