RNVR Cricket Club

Scorecard

Lechlade CC v RNVR Cricket Club on Sun 02 May 2021 at 2.30pm
RNVR Cricket Club Lost by 8 wickets, with 15.2 overs to spare

Match report 40 over game

The RNVR diaspora tour ends up as one game. Bristol was lost to a lack of grass; not obvious all the months before when planning. Who knew that with no students at Bristol Uni all their grounds were hired, and that all the local smart schools were not taking the bank holiday off. Better luck next year.
The Monday game was a victim to weather that appeared to become extremely stormy a few hours after the squad had left the area.

Lechlade CC, it turns out don't play Sunday cricket, ever. And so we walked into a league club rebuilding after losing a lot of players in recent years. The wicket was amazingly good and the pavillion is newly refurbished. We were made to feel very welcome with a huge number of tables for us to display our thousands of bats and pads and for the new club mascot to chew.

From a state at 2pm of not knowing us we had moved by 8.45pm to being booked in for an all day declaration game in 2022. Let's review the salient facts that may have brought this about.

The match manager had chosen a side with one teenager and one other player under 40. What the RNVR lacked in youth it made up for in COVID vaccinations and fully paid up National Insurance Contributions. In mature reflection, after a splendid supper in a Pub Ford would likely hope to see in heaven, the teenager wondered why, as the only one able to run, his father had suggested he be the one to keep wicket in a tour squad boasting eight players who had done so more than twice for the club.

The positive ramifications of the selection choice really goes to prove the uselessness of stats (same idiot selector). How can a side with the club's two currently playing highest accumulating bats (Congratulations to Dr Ford in passing 5,000 recorded career runs on the day) and 4 of the 6 living highest recorded wicket takers be so rubbish...............? (err see paragraph above).

Congratulations to Graham Wyles though (whose first ball for 13 years ought to have been caught and bowled) for setting a new longest career to date (debut 1979) beating such names as P M Connolly, A G Hensher and the rest, and setting a new upper age range for playing. We are truly an open club! But I transgress.

Despite public declaration elsewhere on this website that we we like to fight for a close finish one of our older maxim's was to play folk into form and put money behind their bar. This we did admirably.

Jon Merrett very kindly organised from the butcher, a sponsor, for us to buy and Skipper Hylton to cook delicious sausages after the game and the beer jug was filled repeatedly....... until we had drunk the bar dry. (Remember that bit about LCC not playing sundays - The RNVR thirst was not expected.)

We left - thirsts slated and meandered slowly and deliberately to supper - our job done.

When you add in the experiences of the assorted chaps with captaincy experience (President Crichton, Vacher, Liddell, Ford and Crichton), with Hylton on the day, plus the match manager charm of Massey, Maroof and Pepler - and of course club legend Wyles - we could have got a return match at NW8 after losing to the county champions........

We left feeling we'd made friends off the pitch in just a few short hours. (Always good when the RNVR players are likely to be at each other's throats by drinking-up time on matters as consequential as european football and the RNVR's greatest X1 - who was it that's definitely in and out??)

Steve Davies was seriously missed as organiser and hugely talented wicketkeeper batsman, and grateful thanks are due to all the Liddell family. Young Archie debuted as assistant to the teenager in stacking bags on the roof of the tour bus - once Edward Crichton's role.


You ask about the cricket? Ford faced two consecutive maidens from Alison Munday. He didn't hit a boundary till the 21st over - who HAS that patience? He hit consecutive sixes, he had a lazy Vacher run out. He passed 5,000 runs. Reza scored a single. Otherwise he hits the ball hard. Rob P batted and bowled like he was a cricketer. It's just a shame he stood out on the day for being so unusual! Lidds had a maiden golden duck, and Freddie Merrett (who opens the batting and doesn't bowl for his league side [and who aren't LCC] needed one ball to remove James Massey. Yes it kept low. But as umpire i'd argue if he'd attached a brightly lit firework to it and filled it with small bells, James may still not have seen it. Bertie Vacher chose to sweep Merrett for four when he kindly bowled spin at the tail, which I thought was unnecessarily foolish for the young man.

Our bowling was (RP aside) rather ineffectual without being bad. Very little nail varnish was needed as an excuse, and we were simply sloppy in the lack of run outs.

We really were the second best side by quite a way. Match manager's fault.

Charlie Crichton neatly summed up a potential problem by offering to order new club sweaters 48 hours later.

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
4w 8b 3lb 
for 9 wickets
15
150		        
Paul Ford lbw K Gandhi 39 90 4 2 43.33
Reza Maroof ct F Merrett, Alison Mundy 31 36 6 1 86.11
Robert Paterson b J Cotteral 33 26 7 126.92
Piers Vacher run out (C Payne) 6 16 1 37.50
Charlie Crichton b Fatarpenkar 5 11 45.45
Anthony Liddell st J Merrett, A Gandhi 0 1 0
James Massey b F Merrett 3 3 100
Mark Pepler ct F Merrett, A Gandhi 0 2 0
Hylton Phillips Not Out  13 5 2 260.0
Graham J Wyles b F Merrett 4 4 100
Bertie Vacher Not Out  6 3 1 200

Lechlade CC Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
G Knight6.011700.002.83
Alison Mundy6.0218118.003.00
K Gandhi6.0220120.003.33
J Cotterall6.0125125.004.17
C Payne2.0021121.0010.50
Ash Gandhi3.001326.504.33
K Fatarpenkar6.0210110.001.67
Freddie Merrett5.011527.503.00

Lechlade CC Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 1w 8b 1lb 
for 2 wickets
11
153 (24.4 overs)		     
M Dore lbw Massey 41 62 6 66.13
A Mcloud b Paterson 16 23 3 69.57
J Cotterall Retired Not Out  50 34 9 147.06
K Fatarpenkar Not Out  13 6 2 216.67
K Gandi Not Out  18 7 3 1 257.14
G Knight  
Freddie Merrett  
Ash Gandhi  
Jon Merrett *+  
Charles Payne  
Alison Mundy  

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Graham J Wyles4.001700.004.25
Hylton Phillips4.011300.003.25
Anthony Liddell4.011600.004.00
Robert Paterson4.0014114.003.50
James Massey4.0028128.007.00
Mark Pepler4.004700.0011.75
Piers Vacher0.40900.0013.50

  • Umpire :
  • Scorer :
    vacher