A perfect English summer’s afternoon was the setting for the penultimate Sunday of the Sloth season. Franks, having won the toss, elected to bat, a decision which was roundly derided given the events of last year when the Sloths just ran out of time trying to bowl Priston out.
However, a solid start by Harper and Llongman suggested all might be well, before the Welsh maestro was undone by his nemesis, the 4 year old twirler who looks younger than his years. That brought together Harper and Lewis, who put on an excellent century stand, characterised by careful defence, despatching the occasional bad ball, and risible running. “Yes”, “no”, “come on”, “NO”. Then next over: “Yes”, “No – you didn’t run last time.”. etc etc.
After Harper and Lewis eventually fell for 54 and 70 respectively, Hewes came in to torment the bowlers with reverse sweeps and lovely drives, while Dan doughtily defended the first ball that so often does for him, then proceeded to bludgeon 36 off 24 balls. Clearly Dan had entered into some sort of Faustian pact, since the Devil’s attention was (for now) transferred to Mike Bond who succumbed to a first-baller.
244 seemed like it should be enough.
Pipe and Yerbury opened the bowling without luck. Then Hewes and Lewis continued the theme of bowling well without fortune smiling on them. A breakthrough seemed to have appeared after Franks made a sprawling stop, returned to Stumpchat with the batsman nowhere to be seen. Stumpchat triumphantly made to remove the bails, walked off in celebration, only to realise he hadn’t actually made contact with the stumps. Several seconds later the batsman lumbered into the crease, but by then the usually flawless wicket keeper was having an existential crisis and could no more remove the bails than go through an over silently.
Eventually Franks held on to a tumbling catch off Hewes, and there was hope. Dan then clean bowled their number 3. But there were to be no more wickets. Mike Bond so nearly pulled off an amazing catch as a tracer bullet left his fingers smoking, and Dan dropped a difficult chance in the deep off Llongman. But perhaps through over-indulgence of the ever-excellent tea, the spark just wasn’t there. As evening fell, and the only sounds were the call of the Stumpchat echoing off the nearby rectory and the occasional bleat of a local sheep, Priston got across the line with 3 balls of the final 20 remaining, having lost only the two wickets, despite some frugal death bowling from Llongman and the broken-toed Yerbury. Their opening bat, ex-Notts County footballer Thacker, (the Sloths silently mispronouncing the name as miscues evaded hands) finishing on 108 not out.
A fine game, although one that left the Sloths scratching their heads as to quite where it had gone wrong. Possible not enough toll taken from some not-particularly-threatening Priston bowling, possibly just a few too many bad balls, but probably all came back to The Wrong Decision at the start, electing to bat, when logic and common sense said field.
