Forest Hill vs Holton
Sunday 1 May 2016
Original Report by Alan Banyard
Exciting Chase ends in Tied Game
During the Winter break, we confirmed we would play three trial “home” fixtures at Stanton-St-John towards the end of the summer. By coincidence, our second fixture of the season gave us the opportunity for a taster as we played Forest Hill at the same venue – the first time we have played there for more than a decade. The ground is now the Saturday venue for Holton spinoffs, Cairns Fudge.
The Holton skipper was Alun Regan with Anwar Pervaiz (who played for us the preceding week) playing for Forest Hill. We were looking for an opening victory of the season after defeat in our first game at Chearsley.
The game got underway in sunny weather with Alun winning the toss and selecting to bat first. The first new initiative of the day was that the Kelly brothers were to open the batting for the first time, giving John a rare opportunity to play himself in. Anwar opened the bowling and started off with a good maiden to Mark leaving us thinking it could be a difficult afternoon.
After just a wide in the next over from Nic Haynes, we finally got going in the third over as Mark and John both got off the mark with a single and a three respectively. But then Haynes had John bowled and a few overs later I was also back in the pavilion with a miss-cue and after an amazing one handed catch down leg side by Drew.
That was 7 for 2 and by the time we reached 10 overs, Richard Huggins was also out (to J Hobbins) and we were tottering at 23 for 3. We had visions of an embarrassing early tea and only a determined Mark was keeping the ship afloat. There was talk of an unlikely target of 140 plus being defendable and in the end that proved to be the case.
Then up stepped Dan Jacobs and an excellent partnership was at last underway. The scoring rate increased too with a variety of shots including 14 off an over from Tyrus. Finally, after a partnership of 40, Mark was bowled by Hobbins for a nice 24.
If we thought by then we were out of trouble, we were wrong as Peter Challis (first game for Holton) and Will Huggins both fell to spinner J Davey and we were back in the mire at 76 for 6 and only 14 overs left to gain some respectability. At this point, Forest Hill must have been anticipating a fairly easy win on what was turning out to be a fairly flat, albeit slow wicket.
But they couldn’t have anticipated a remarkable unbroken partnership between Dan and Guy Burford to bat out the innings. Altogether they put on an invaluable 70 at exactly 5 and over. Guy hit a bright 35 including a six, but the day’s star inning was played by Dan who scored 65. When Dan joined the fray, we were 23 for 3 and he was still there with Guy when we finished at 146 for 6 and we felt we were definitely still in the game as we went off for tea.
| Holton innings | 4s | 6s | ||||||
| M Kelly | b Hobbins | 24 | 3 | |||||
| J Kelly | b Haynes | 3 | ||||||
| A Banyard | caught | b Hobbins | 0 | |||||
| R Huggins | b Haynes | 4 | ||||||
| D Jacobs | not out | 67 | 5 | |||||
| P Challis | Stumped | b Davey | 0 | |||||
| W Huggins | b Davey | 2 | ||||||
| G Burford | not out | 35 | 4 | 1 | ||||
| A Regan | ||||||||
| R Taylor | ||||||||
| N Robinson | ||||||||
| Extras | b 4 lb 1 w 2 nb 4 | 11 | ||||||
| TOTAL: | 6 wkts, 35 overs | 146 | ||||||
Fall of wkts: 1-5, 2-7, 3-23, 4-63, 5-66, 6-76
| Bowler | O | M | R | W |
| A Pervaiz | 7 | 1 | 22 | 0 |
| N Haynes | 7 | 1 | 19 | 2 |
| A Tyrus | 3 | 0 | 24 | 0 |
| J Hobbins | 7 | 1 | 16 | 2 |
| J Davey | 7 | 0 | 42 | 2 |
| D Wilson | 4 | 0 | 18 | 0 |
After the break Alun Regan and Robin Taylor opened the bowling and both were into an excellent line and length, especially Robin, but it was Alun who took the early honours with the dismissal of both openers Hobbins (caught by keeper Dan) and Hayday and in between he had Wharton trapped LBW. The home side were 15 for 3, in many ways paralleling the first innings and Holton were now on top and looking for victory.
But just as it was for us at the same stage, it was time for a partnership and this time it was Vincent (55) and O’Gorman (44) who were the Forest Hill saviours as they put on a splendid partnership of 83. It wasn’t easy going though; with a tight spell from Guy Burford in particular the required run rate began to increase. Finally the pressure told and following a Vincent leg glance off Neil Robinson, O’Gorman went for a too tight single and was run out after an exceptionally quick piece of work by John Kelly.
But just as it was for us at the same stage, it was time for a partnership and this time it was Vincent (55) and O’Gorman (44) who were the Forest Hill saviours as they put on a splendid partnership of 83. It wasn’t easy going though; with a tight spell from Guy Burford in particular the required run rate began to increase. Finally the pressure told and following a Vincent leg glance off Neil Robinson, O’Gorman went for a too tight single and was run out after an exceptionally quick piece of work by John Kelly.
Vincent kept going though and with support from Drew put Forest Hill ahead again and at 125 for 4 the hosts only needed another 22 off 22. John Kelly then took the vital wicket of Vincent at which point I think everyone knew we were in for a cracking finish.
By this time Drew and Tyrus were scrambling for every run possible until finally the latter smashed a short ball from John straight to Alan Banyard (golly, that’s me!) fielding very close on the leg side and I just about managed to cling on to an important catch. Forest Hill now needed 7 off 8 and then just 6 off the last over. The tension was mounting as adrenalin took over both sets of players. The hosts were slight favourities?
Bowling choices were now somewhat limited with Alun, Robin and Guy bowled out and it was Will Huggins who was asked to step up to the plate. By his own standards, Will had struggled a bit with his earlier spell of four overs, particularly against the prolific Vincent and O’Gorman and we could all feel the tension as our young quick bowler marked his run up. Please don’t let there be any wides or byes!
Davey took a single of the first ball and Drew hit a crucial two off the next. Only 3 were needed now off four balls and we feared the worst. But Will had regained his line and after a play and miss and a block by Drew it was 3 off two and still the game was in the balance. So who was going to finally crack and lose the game.
Drew scrambled yet another single and we were down to the last ball of the match. Everything rested on Will and Davey and with 2 to win all results were still pretty much equally possible!!!!
It just had to be didn’t it! Davey did just well enough to evade the infield, we had the sense to keep hold of the ball to ensure no chance of an overthrow and there we were the single meant we had a very rare tied game – the first since we played Tetsworth best part of a decade back!
| Forest Hill innings | 4s | 6s | ||||||
| Hobbins | c Jacobs | b Regan | 0 | |||||
| Hayday | b Regan | 4 | 1 | |||||
| Wharton | LBW | b Regan | 3 | |||||
| Vincent | b J Kelly | 55 | 5 | 1 | ||||
| O’Gorman | run out (J Kelly) | 44 | 6 | 1 | ||||
| Drew | not out | 11 | 1 | |||||
| Tyrus | c Banyard | b J Kelly | 5 | |||||
| Davey | not out | 3 | ||||||
| Wilson | ||||||||
| Pervaiz | ||||||||
| Haynes | ||||||||
| Extras | b 7 lb 3 w 8 nb 2 | 21 | ||||||
| TOTAL: | 6 wkts, 35 overs | 146 | ||||||
Fall of wkts: 1-0, 2-3, 3-15, 4-98, 5-125, 6-140
| Bowler | O | M | R | W |
| A Regan | 7 | 1 | 18 | 3 |
| R Taylor | 7 | 1 | 15 | 0 |
| G Burford | 7 | 1 | 21 | 0 |
| W Huggins | 5 | 0 | 36 | 0 |
| J Kelly | 6 | 0 | 32 | 2 |
| N Robinson | 3 | 0 | 14 | 0 |
After the game there were the usual inquests. There were a lot of excellent efforts from both sides that saved runs as well as the usual mistakes. We tried to work out the moments that saved the game for us as well as the mini-disasters that so nearly cost us.
In the end, forgetting for a moment the brilliant batting performance from Dan and the critical wickets by Alun and John, my magic moment was Will fielding on the mid-wicket boundary in the latter part of the game. It was a cracking shot, probably by Vincent, but somehow after running about 20 yards and diving horizontally to his right, somehow, I don’t know how, incredibly, impossibly, Will got a hand to it and saved two runs. Was that the moment that decided both sets of players would retreat in the best possible spirits to the White Horse for a curry, courtesy of Anwar!