Bowlers Dominate Martins

Nomads had another strong team for an early start at Walsall, due to a band on later. Many of the Nomads had come back from Headingley after seeing England trounce the Indians in a morning finish. The opposition, not used to an early start, were missing a few players so they batted first. Dan Lee gave his usual polished performance with an excellent 18 for 2 off his 8 overs. Sam Bryars struggled for length and line bowling up hill. But having plenty of bowlers he was replaced by Ian Hughes fresh from his match-winning performance at Hanbury. He chipped in with a further 2 wickets. The later opposition batsmen were probably better than the early batsmen now they had their full squad but if they expected to score a few runs off the 3rd string bowlers, they were surprised by the quality of Aneek Mahmood and leading wicket taker Jim Cogzell. Both furthered their season’s tally with 2 and 3 wickets respectively. John Hoddy was brought on at the death to polish off the tail.
A great all-round bowling performance by Nomads with John Loxley taking 3 excellent catches in the field.
Nomads were thrilled to keep what looked like a decent batting side down to 117, however on a slow pitch with variable bounce captain Dave Rolfe assured his team that there was work to be done. So saying, he opened with himself and Pete Gardner. A steady basis was required and with the help of a few extras a good total of 28 was taken off the 1st 10 overs, just about up with the run-rate. However the 2 openers were lost within 2 overs to catches to the keeper and when Aneek Mahmood had a relative failure scoring just11, some worries started to surface. Never fear John Loxley was here and although suffering from lack of sleep and a hangover, he started to bash the bowling about. He had a nervous 3 balls against slow bowler Cooper but soon recovered and continued his good work. Backed up by Sam Bryars and then Tom Scurlock, he seemed to be going for jug avoidance at one stage when approaching his maiden 50 for Nomads, he tried to lose the strike for the following over when he called Tom Scurlock for a run, but a chorus of noes from the spectators kept him on strike and he comfortably achieved his 50.
Another excellent day for the Nomads and it was good to see John Loxley achieve his maiden Nomads’ 50 and take 3 good catches to deservedly gain MVP.

[Disclaimer: Any offence caused by this article is unintentional, any praise is well deserved]

Date: 29 August 2021
Start time: 11:00
Venue: Gorway Road, Walsall
Competition: 40 overs Friendly
Scores: Martins 117; Lichfield Nomads 118 for 4
Result: Lichfield Nomads beat Martins by 6 wkts
Toss: Martins won the toss and elected to bat.
Scorers: J. Hoddy
Umpires: Various
Report: J. Hoddy
Weather: Warm

Last update: 3 Sept 2021