V&A XI:N. T. Walsh (c) , B. Horan, C. Jonkers, A. Jacot, G. Jacot, I. Krunic, L. Nieboer, J. Arnold, T. Cowley, J. Bridge, D. Scott
As the weather refused to break from the previous week, the Stonor ground remained baked in sunlight and many must have thought that the wicket would have become a batsmen’s dream. This however was not the case as wicket remained stubbornly as “sticky” as ever. Home advantage did certainly play its part with the V&A seemingly used to such erratic movement off the pitch and this showed when it came to the final score.
This fixture has been going on for many years, and Town & Country always make their way down the valley raring to go. As the teams met in anticipation the toss was lost and we were forced to put up a total. Ben and captain Walsh strode out as the heat of the day began to arise and Walsh, with his mind potentially on how he might organise lunch and tea, got bowled by a good ball early on. This brought his future son-in-law, Tom Cowley, to the crease and a methodical but necessary partnership was built.
As Catullus and Moliere were broken down by the artistic and classical minds sat in the pavilion, both Ben and Tom had their innings ended in relatively quick succession scoring 23 and 21 respectively. This brought two stalwarts of the V&A to the crease as Nieboer and Arnold stepped up to help us get back on track.
Lunch was a truly magnificent spread thanks to Marina Walsh with a particular mention to the coronation chicken which was truly marvellous. Some shrewd words as well and a slight dig at Christiaan from Nicky as lunch was concluded. Unfortunately, lunch fuelled T&C’s opening bowler Alex Deacon to get Lachlan with a fantastic leg stump yorker. Jake Bridge contributed as best he could, but the innings was finished with a bang as George Jacot launched an enormous six as well as another boundary alongside Jasper’s anchoring 31 not out to give a total of 156, what could be considered par on this pitch…
In the change of innings there was an air of intrigue to see how the Town & Country would fare on this pitch. The opening pairing of Jonkers and Krunic was a force to be reckoned with as Krunic opened with two wickets in his opening over, one of which had so little height that it hit the very bottom of the stump. More wickets fell to this fantastic opening spell with Krunic taking three for two off two overs and Town & Country were 13-4.
Adam Jacot and Dominic Scott came on at first change and wickets kept falling, with some blaming the pitch while others were just giving their wickets away. As tea was called the opposition were seven down and the break was welcomed by all, talk of a football match was about and there was a discussion whether the game would be over in time. After tea George Jacot picked up a wicket with the first ball as yet another one slid under the defence of the batsman. Lachlan bowled well off an unorthodox two step run up and took a wicket from an acrobatic Jonkers catch.
Town & Country all out for 54 giving the V&A a 102 run win and while there was a big margin in the final scores, it was nonetheless a fantastic day out for both teams rounded off nicely by a few settlers in the Golden Ball.
