Defeat at Headley but Colegate enjoys his day out

OCCC 189 for 9 (Colegate 58, Vickers 40) lost to Headley 190 for 6 (Colegate 3-9) by four wickets
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Mark Colegate on his way to 58*

While the cream of the club took part in the Cricketer Cup warm-up and others joined in the match to celebrate Mike Howard’s 500 terms at the Prep, the old and infirm took to the field for the always-enjoyable annual game at Headley. The weather was chilly and the late-running captain found himself relegated to the bench after Mike Chase staged a coup when he found he had 11 men present anyway.

Headley fielded a new opening bowler - Farai Gono – who was quick and moved the ball (initially into Tristan Rosenfeldt’s body) but somehow failed to take a wicket. At the other end we lost two wickets in as many deliveries to balls that would have been called wide, Chase doing brilliantly to shuffle to off to try to just reach a ball he toe-ended straight at cover.

That brought in Peter Hobbs, back from Australia after eight years. He looked unchanged and his batting was just as we remembered. He departed for a five-ball duck.

Jock Vickers for a time looked like a batsman with some powerfully hit boundaries and Mark Colegate, in his first innings for 18 months, started slowly but gradually unleashed a series of lovely attacking strokes to bring him his fifty. Steve Bailey came in for a typically Kitbagesque cameo, repeatedly giving himself room to the brisk Gono and scoring heavily through third man, in between cracking two sublime cover drives. Eventually Chase, who started talking about the declaration soon after he was out, had enough and called time.

Colegate and Steve Bailey combine to bugger up a catch

Eddie Hamilton, on his debut and down from Durham University (greeted with Rosenfeldt’s “so, tell me, is Northumbria a county or what” ) bowled well and deserved more than his two wickets; Damo Hill did get what he deserved as the ball disappeared into the undergrowth. We were always struggling to keep Headley from scoring freely, although Chase’s moonballs did cause some amusement before the batsmen started thumping them to all parts.

Hobbs came on and briefly generated some pace before, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, he went in the hamstring and marched straight to the pavilion muttering he would not be back “for another eight ******* years”.

The end was nigh when Colegate came on and grabbed three late wickets, the first to a smashed drive which he took with complete nonchalance and then two with successive deliveries to swings that went miles straight up. It was too little too late but it gave the scorecard a look of respectability and completed a good day out for him.