Frogs denied at the death

OCCC 245 (Gates 48, Hill 41, Chetwode 3 for a lot) drew with Frogs 243 for 5

While the OC elite were up north dismantling Shrewsbury, it was left to an OC XI to take on The Frogs on a glorious day at Jubilee. It appeared as though The Frogs had struggled to get a team together; with an age range of 14 to 74 – batting first was the easy choice upon Ed Henderson winning the toss.

Henry Watkinson and Damion Hill opened up the batting, Watkinson only lasting three balls before being trapped LBW to Michael Chetwode – you can imagine the reactions of both parties. Jonny Gates strode to the crease at No. 3 having remarkably arrived on time and having used two tanks of petrol on the trip down from London in the Porsche. Despite this, Hill and Gates batted well – putting on 80 before Hill (41) was trapped LBW. Gates (48) followed soon after, again LBW – leaving Jumbo Jupp and Gareth Starling to hold on until lunch. However Jupp (12) quickly departed – Bobby Ewing making his debut in a pressure situation at 101 for 4.

After an excellent lunch, Ewing and Starling looked to rebuild the innings after the mini collapse, however not long into his innings Ewing was forced to retire hurt due to a pulled hamstring. This brought in Jamie Richards – another making his OC debut, at a score of 105-5. Starling and Richards built a solid partnership and increased the scoring rate considerably, with Richards taking a liking to the 14-year-old offspinner and his bowling too. Much to the irritation of Richards, Starling was unable to find the boundary which meant a lot of running threes and even a four. Starling (36) another nursing a sore hamstring was run out in order to preserve his body, bringing in Henderson as we looked to push on towards a declaration. Richards continued to play some agricultural shots as the score rattled past 200. Henderson (9) soon departed; bringing Harrison (0) to the crease, although he quickly followed suite. Richards (74) was soon caught, and after a few lusty blows from Alex Goudie (12*) the OC’s declared.

With Ewing unable to keep, the motto ABG (Anyone But Gates) was used to find his replacement, Jupp the man forced to make his keeping debut. With 40 minutes until tea, Chitty and Harrison opened the bowling looking to make early inroads into the Frogs top order. Chitty continued to fly past the outside edge, and even with between-over coaching the Frogs younger opening batsmen couldn’t get bat on ball – although the sound of the ball hitting Jupp’s concrete hands would have had many fooled. Harrison bowled well, and would have picked up an early wicket had it not been Richards at 2nd slip. Dropped catches soon becoming a theme throughout the day. As tea approached, two trends became evident – you need a third man to Chitty (which we didn’t) and byes were likely to be top scorer.

Watkinson (still reeling from his duck and being dropped from the Cricketer Cup team) and Goudie opened up the bowling after tea, looking to make the first breakthrough. Although both bowled with good rhythm, they were unable to make any inroads as we continued to shell catches - Gates (at backward point again!) put a tough chance down off Watkinson (slightly tense atmosphere in the office this morning) and Jupp dropped the first of his 5 chances off Goudie. Henderson replaced Watkinson from the top end and bowled with pace and accuracy, but all his effort came to no avail as the Frogs moved onwards. Even Gates was handed the ball to try and break the partnership, unsurprisingly unable to do so with his prep school offspin. 

With 20 overs to go the Frogs were very much in command of the game, even though Chitty began to take regular wickets with six overs left they needed to run a ball, this led to them needing 12 off 18 balls. We fielded with 10 men for the majority and one of those 10 was the statuesque Starling (injured) and another was the statuesque Gates(slow). With six needed off the last over and Chetwode hiding behind a bench with his pads on, Watkinson finally decided it was time to turn up to the party and bowled an excellent last over meaning the Frogs finished two runs short of victory. We came away with an unlikely draw and an otherwise slow moving game finished with a very exciting last half an hour. Jamie Richards