Gents of Worcs | Sussex Martlets

Match Report

For the third day of our preseason tour, the Over-40s (notionally, most are the wrong side of 50 or even 60 !) travelled out from the city to the beautiful Worcester Nomads Cricket Club, a strong member of the local league scene. Here we had a fulsome welcome from the opposition for the day, the Gentlemen of Worcestershire, a 35 over game in prospect in order to accommodate an earlyish start for those motoring back to Sussex later.

Losing the toss, the team took the field, bolstered by some additional members, young Oscar Mann, I Jerram and Malcolm Burt , who were all to play key roles in a five-wicket victory – which deserves advertising early in this piece ! As our leader Degsy has often said, the Over-40s do not always enjoy an easy ride, results-wise !

Degsy himself opened the bowling feeling rather stiff and not 100% fit, it has to be said, but had good support from Tom Whyte at the other end – Tom was the most successful of the Martlet bowlers with only 23 runs conceded off his 7 overs and two wickets taken. Our man from Jersey, Johnny Wills, also bowled economically at just 5 an over without luck – the others we should perhaps skate over, maybe just mentioning Walks who bought his wicket at 10 an over ! For the opposition, Joshua Hawes made 51 and sportingly retired, while Chris Ellison marshalled the later innings with 43 not out: Phil Savage found a devastating throw to run a batter out, whilst David Mann stumped and caught one to be level with Phil’s keeping the day before.

The Gents accumulated efficiently at 6+ runs an over and the total of 224-6 looked challenging as Arran Aris and Malcolm Burt went out to bat. An opening partnership of 68 got us off to a good start, if a little slowly at 4 an over, but then Arran, joined by Jerram, went into overdrive, scoring at nearly 10 an over for the next ten overs: Jerram was out for 32 off 22 balls and Oscar Mann came in to contribute 33 runs off 27. Arran was third out for a devastating 89 from 88 balls, with 11 fours and four sixes, an excellent innings which left Martlets 65 to make off 10 overs – not quite straightforward but most of the way there !

Fortunately, the Mann father and son combination was very much on song and added 39 at a run a ball, before Savage (briefly) and Johnny Wills helped Mann Senior see us home, with a very measured innings of 25 not out off 21 balls. Experience counts. It was a thoroughly satisfactory end to the tour and a deserved reward for Arran’s explosive batting in the first two thirds of the innings !

Thanks as ever to Alan Newman, Degsy, Paul Walker and others who contributed to the planning of the trip – special mention for our new tourist and umpire from Richmond, Nick Stevenson, who added a lot of erudition, umpiring nous and colour to the tour; and also Nigel Beesley, who scored both games immaculately as ever – and also bought a copy of my book (shameless plug – “One Arm Bowls A Little” – the history of the Stragglers of Asia !). Everyone had a super time as usual and, for those who have not been on this early season adventure before, I thoroughly recommend it next year, destination as yet unknown !