Copford Cricket ClubTie at Coggeshall.....
Back to the Match Reports4th July 2009
We turned up at Coggeshall knowing it would probably be our toughest game of the season, and we weren’t disappointed. Having lost the toss we would have to field first, starting with nine men.
Coggeshall got off to a flyer, and it wasn’t until Andy Bell got the first wicket that we managed to drag the run rate down to something respectable. The home side’s innings was now dependant upon opener Sam Blackwell and he was dismissed by a superb diving catch from Chris Moon on the boundary off the bowling of Steve Moriarty. As the innings went on, both Belly and Mozza managed to keep taking wickets and keeping it tight. The home side had a few wickets in hand at the end and managed to accelerate, even though they did lose wickets. James Bell took two wickets bowling off spin and Chris Smith claiming a wicket in his second spell. Coggeshall eventually went into tea with a score of 224 for 8, which we thought wasn’t too bad considering their lightning start.
After many discussions, JB was partnered by Catley and they managed to see off the new ball bowlers of the home side, but with Catley finding runs hard to come by, James took it upon himself to score the majority of the runs. The partnership was broken with the score on 112, with the dismissal of Catley, but we felt we had a base and could now push on. However, it was not easy to score quickly and we lost wickets at regular intervals in our pursuit of the target. After very useful contributions from Keith Sargeant and Adam Parker, it was left down to Belly and Steve Harris to try and see us home as we were left needing 10 to win off the final over, with just two wickets remaining. Some clever batting and good running from those two left us needing three to win from the final ball with Belly on strike. The final ball flicked Belly’s pad and ran down to fine leg and they managed to scamper two runs making the scores level and the match a tie!
A fantastic game of cricket which we all enjoyed, except Andy Reid who spent most of the day socialising with the boundary rope, TFC mate. And probably a fair result too.
Team: James Bell (c), Adam Parker (wk), Ian Catley, Chris Moon, Keith Sargeant, Steve Harris, Andy Reid, Ben Rawson, Steve Moriarty, Andy Bell, Chris Smith
Man of the Match: James Bell for his 118
Report by I. Catley