21st August 2004

Windsor Vs Cove at Cove CC

On what turned out to be a lovely summer’s day Windsor 1st’s produced what can only be described as a very gutsy performance.

Windsor was missing 5 key players due to injuries, and with the in form 2nd team on course for promotion it was decided that they should be left as strong as possible.

Windsor stand in skipper Peter Thompson knew that there best chance of a good points hall on winning the toss would be to bat 1st, this decision was made interesting with the fact the wicket was quite damp and looked as if would get better as the match went on, this did not deter Thompson from wanting to bat 1st, and was made irrelevant when the toss was loss and Windsor were asked to bat.

What ensued here was 15 overs of extremely tough cricket, after losing Andy Chorley in the second over to a ball that swung at least 2 feet from off and took leg Skipper Thompson and Brian Davis dug deep, with the bowlers having it all there own way, for a period it actually got harder for the two batsmen as the conditions became over cast the ball started to swing further and later, eventually Thompson’s resistance fell as he was caught in the covers of a ball that stopped dead of the wicket. Davis fell soon after with young mike Gould soon following, a familiar Windsor collapse started from being 50 -1 Windsor were 60 – 6, no fear from tough tyke Thompson as he had balanced his batting attack perfectly, as the wicket improved through the middle part of the innings Noble, charters and Huggins got stuck in, Noble and Charters making 27 and 30 respectively, the high of the innings was Mark Huggins who after being asked to step up to the plate by Senior pro Spence in previous weeks did exactly this, he smashed 71 superb runs with glorious on and cover drives, Cove had no answer to this flintoff type player, eventually he was out but the damage had been done and with the help of noble, charters and a nice little cameo from 15 year old debutant Nick Cornish Windsor reached there target of 200 runs and 10 points.

202 all out was thought to be not enough as the wicket had turned very flat and was proving towards the end very easy to score runs from.

Mark Huggins and Debutant Nick Cornish took the new ball, young Cornish immediately getting the ball to move about Huggins struggled for rhythm and broke down after two overs leaving Thompson with a big problem as Huggins was the only recognised 1st team bowler who Thompson had wanted at least 15 overs from, the other issues Thompson faced were that although young Cornish was beating the bat the Cove batsman had come out all guns blazing and were riding there luck as ball were flying everywhere, Thompson had to slow the run rate or this game would be over in 15 overs, the best way of doing this was to take wickets, young Cornish then obliged with his 1st and 2nd 1st team wickets, skipper Thompson taking over from Huggins got stuck in but couldn’t find rhythm for his first few overs and the Cove batsmen set about the bowling, then he struck with a smart catch from Richard Charters then again with a plumb lbw, all of the sudden the full strength Cove team were 4 for 80, Richard Endercott then came on to bowled a tidy line and length as young Cornish was restricted to 5 over spells, but it was Thompson at the over end who was getting the ball to swing both ways, the pressure was on and he had the overseas star in trouble as he was dropped on 15 and his batting partner who was close to lbw on a few occasions, Windsor just couldn’t get these 2 out and they batted well to take the game to a near end, Cove’s overseas player eventually out to a good catch in the deep by Charters again off the slow bowling of Rob Noble. But it was too late and Cove finished the game off with 5 wickets down and 10 overs to spare.

Windsor left the field with heads held high knowing that they had done themselves proud and although they had lost this had been very much a morale victory, they had all the conditions against them throughout the match and still managed to fight there way to 12 points against Cove’s 20.

Thompson and Cornish finished with decent figures, Thompson was especially pleased with young Cornish as he showed tremendous promise on debut, also batting and fielding well. Thompson’s effort was also excellent bowling 17 on the trot which from a player who very rarely bowls for Windsor shows what depth the club has at its disposal.

Windsor face Amersham next week at the home park and with some key players back will look to finish the season with a couple of wins.