Story Three Lions on the Shirt? - Match Day: Northamptonshire fight back!!!

[Covvy]

Right! Time to finally pay some interest in this story. It drew my attention when the 'Tasmania insult siren' started blaring in my ear and pointed me here. It seems like a Tasmania is causing all your problems in this match.

 

[Aditya]

Now Glamorgan have a great chance to win the match,But obviously they need to take few more wickets,only 4 batsmen left. Common Tom take at least two more wickets!

 

[thesweepmaster]

Jesus Tom, It's been two years since I officially left the site to basically sort my life out and you were doing this story then and you're still doing it now! I must say the quality of this story has gone from strength to strength and TBH, its still is a fantastic read.

 

[treva]

Well, he's probably had it running for a year out of the two. He's ended it about 5 times now

 

[thesweepmaster]

Ah you see, I've missed a lot over the past 2 years, everyone has grown up and I'm feeling old now in my final teenage year... Atleast though he has come back to continue his story and stuck mostly with it, I don't think I could have the concentration to continue a story for this long!

 

[Highlander999]

Disaster for Baker​

Down at fine leg I had quite a good view of a pumped up Cooky who was chatting to Crofty and Jamie about their tactics for the final few overs. I was meanwhile chatting to some locals about how badly Michael Yardy sucked and how England needed to get Samit Patel into the team, beer belly and all. Every team needs a fat kid to tease. We had Crofty, England needed Patel.

Anyway, discussion over, Cooky was ready to bowl again. Di Venuto was on strike for Durham and everyone was vocal in giving Cooky their support. Cooky came thundering in and caught Di Venuto by surprise with a short ball. Di Venuto was late on the hook and top edged it.......it was coming towards me.......

I ran forward about 20 paces to position myself under the ball, however, my foot caught in a divot in a ground. I slipped sideways and felt my leg lock, follwed by a horrible crack!!! It was like a million burning hot knives had been shoved into my leg all of a sudden and I screamed so loud, it felt like that was all I would hear for the rest of eternity.

Blackness started to surround me and mercifully I passed out......

"Come on Tom, wake up mate! Wake up!"

"Whaaa...... OH MY GOD MY FRICKING LEG!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I was on a trolley being rolled towards a waiting ambulance. All I could see were lots of faces blurred around me and a paramedic putting an oxygen mask on me. I looked down and my leg was in some sort of protective casing. I could feel pain welling up in me and I blacked out again.....

(2 weeks pass)

Sitting there in the hospital bed with my leg all plastered up I had begun to cheer up. All the guys from the club had reguarly visited me and my parents had been there to see me most days. My leg had required 3 operations to put it all back together. I had basically totally destroyed my lower leg and apparently bone had been sticking out my leg. Cooky said it looked so bad that TV companies had been banned from showing it. The doc had shown me an x-ray of my leg when I came in and it sent shivers down my spine.

I was definetly out for the rest of the season and it remained to be seen whether I would be able to ever return to full fitness. I had a long road of recovery ahead of me, luckily though, Dean Conway the physio had been in to visit me and said the moment I was better and out of hospital him and his team would be working with me to get me back to full fitness. It really lifted my spirits up to know the club were backing me like this and it made dealing with this situation all the more easier.

(3 more days go by)

Today was the day I would be going home. I had walked around on crutches in the hospital, so had got used to them. As I made my way out the hospital, a photographer from the Cardiff Observer was there to catch me as I left and my picture was on the back page that evening with a short story about what had happened. Gemma picked me up and drove me home (God this was gonna be a pain, being driven everywhere by a woman ) and when we arrived it was to see loads of cards wishing me a speedy recovery. I was touched to see such support from the Glamorgan supporters and could only hope that I would be able to re-pay such kindness on the pitch, once I was fully fit. Now though begun the long and difficult road to recovery....

 

[Aditya]

You can't even take a catch properly.

 

[Highlander999]

The Road to Recovery​

(8 months have passed and Tom has grown a silly beard)

"I really wish you would shave that beard of Tom, it is so scratchy and uncomfortable to rub against"

"Baby, a man has to grow a beard at least once in his life and for me that is now"

" If you say so."

These past months had been really difficult for me as I tried to recover from such a serious injury. Conway and his team had been amazing in fixing me up and I had amazing support from Gemma and my friends at the club. I had missed the whole season and it had not been a brilliant one for us. We were pretty poor in the one day formats and had really lacked the batting depth to compete in conditions which favoured bowlers. There had also been some problems within the club which saw Tom Maynard and Jamie Dalrymple leave the club and there was a lot of change about. One positive though was James Harris who had really shone with ball and bat for us

For me though I had to accept that my day's of being a genuine all-rounder were over. I just could no longer bowl at the pace I used to so I decided to base myself on the Paul Collingwood model, in which I was primarily a batsman who could put some overs down in the shorter format and could be used in emergencies in the longer format. Because of this, once I had begun to get myself back to full fitness I spent hour after hour in the nets against the bowling machine getting my eye and touch back in. We were nearing the start of the new season and the squad's were being finalised. I wanted to be back in the squad and competing at the highest level again. My leg felt good, it was a bit sore when it was damp, but nothing Volterol couldn't handle and it didn't give me any problems when running so it wouldn't affect my batting.

Baker was back and it was time to get some big runs!!!!

 

[Aditya]

You know what Tom, the best thing about this story is the "storyline"! Graphics and writing have always been good in this story. The storyline is something that is a must in every story. Without storyline a story is just like a team without a all rounder. After all, the stories that win SOTY are obviously the best, judging with the experience.

 

[Dragon Fire]

(8 months have passed and Tom has grown a silly beard)

Lol!

This is a fantastic storyline, but I hope you have based him on the Classic Collingwood Convertible rather than the Current Crap Collingwood.

 

[Highlander999]

Being whipped​

(A couple of days have passed and Tom has lost the silly beard )

"Tom, where's the facial fur gone pal?"

"Missus made me shave it off, otherwise the chances of getting any, were as likely as Kamran Akmal completing a stumping!!!"

"That bad ey? You, my friend, are whipped big time"

"Go shove it Cooky "

Bloody women, making me shave. According to MSN news, women find stubble attractive so I was only doing what I thought was best!!! You can never please them!!! So yeah, I was now bare and the lads were giving me a bit of jip on the reasons why

On a positive note though, the Glamorgan squad for the season had been named and I had been included in it

Glamorgan Squad for 2011 Season

A. Petersen (C)
M. Wallace (vc) (wk)
R. Croft
M. Powell
D. Harrison
G. Rees
D. Cosker
A. Jones
M. O'Shea
A. Shantry
T. Baker
S. Cook
J. Harris
J. Allenby
M. Cosgrove (overseas player)
B. Wright
H. Waters
G. Wagg
G. Kruger​

To be honest, this squad had a lot more depth then from the season before. Under Petersen we had a quality batsman and he had already had individual talks with all squad members and seemed like a sound guy. We also had some good quality players like Cossy, Crofty, Cooky, Mike, Reesy and myself as well Looking at that squad whilst there were no really well known people like Ramprakash, Rob Key or Blackwell, there was a lot of youth there with a hell of a lot of potential. The main one to watch would be James Harris who put in 110% and was a totally honest and sound guy.

I now felt pretty good in regards to how I was seeing the ball in the nets and felt in good touch for the start of the season. Our first match of the season was a Pro45 match against Northants, at home which was good as who the hell would want to travel to that backwater!!! Never the less, a couple of days before the match was due, the XI got put up and I had made it!!!

XI for Pro45 Match vs Northamptonshire @ Home

Batting at 4 showed that the coaching team and Petersen had faith in me to perform and I was determined to back them up and show them I had returned from my injury, better then before!!!

 

[Gaurav_7]

Tom, how many times man?

 

[Highlander999]

Match day was here, the lovely alarm clock woke me up with a nice start. I'd been having a nice dream about llama's and a birthday cake.....ok, ok......I have issues

A bowl of porridge got me on my way to the ground where half the lad's where there already and the skip was getting ready to lead us on a few laps of the ground to warm us up before some fielding practice. Cossy looked like s*** though. He's a big lad as it is and he was huffing and puffing by the end of 3 laps. Thank God he is so strong and able to hit the ball to the boundaries reguarly instead of running otherwise he would be a liability.

Soon the Northamptonshire boys turned up and the skip, the match referee and the Northants skipper Andy Hall (my ex-Kent colleague) went out to do the toss. There was a lot of bad blood between the two captains and no one knew for sure why so it would be interesting to see how the match panned out between the two of them. It was a beautiful day for a game of cricket, and the pitch was pretty flat, and with no cloud cover there were plenty of runs on offer The skip won the toss and elected to bat first.

We also got to see the playing XI for Northants

It didn't look too threatning, only Vaas, Hall, Botha and Boje were the main threats there were certainly tougher teams out there, so hopefully we could start our 2011 campaign on a high. Reesy, Cossy and the skip all went off to the changing room to get their pads on, whilst the rest of us went upstairs to the pavillion balcony to watch the start of the match. There wasn't a massive crowd, only a few thousand but there was still a good atmosphere in the ground. Cooky was being the team clown and juggling water-bottles and managed to nail Crofty in the side of the head who was here to watch today.

After a while Reesy and Cossy headed out to the middle to begin our innings. Vaas and Brooks had the new ball for Northants, Vaas would be the one to watch out for.

Vaas had a tidy first over but both Reesy and Cossy got boundaries of Brook's first over. Unfortunately for us, the experience of Vaas then showed in the next over when he managed to get Reesy. A really nice and juicy full ball looked perfect for smashing away. However, it was a cunningly disguised slower ball and all Rees did was lift it gently up into the air, straight into Boje's hands at cover. We had lost our first wicket

This wasn't the start we wanted to the 2011 season, but luckily we had the skip going in next and he was easily the best batsman in the team so we could afford to be confident. I now headed off to the changing rooms to get my pads on and get my equipment ready in case I had to go in quickly. As I was fishing my helmet out of my bag (I found a very old and mouldy kitkat next to it ) Reesy came back in. He looked pretty cheesed off:

"Bad luck pal, what the conditions like?"

"It's a bloody road, so should be making a score on that pitch, soooooo annoyed!!!"

"Ahhh don't beat yourself up, plenty more matches this season for you to make runs in"

A few overs passed and the skip looked in fine touch. Cossy was being un-characteristically quiet and was consolidating, but the skip really pillaged runs of Brooks. In the end Andy Hall brought himself on to replace Brooks and that's when it got interesting His third ball to the skip, resulted in him coming down the pitch and lifting the ball right out the stadium. There might have been a small barge as he ran past Hall and the two ended up squared up. The umpire had to quickly seperate them, but it was apparent there really was no love lost between them. This would be fun to watch

Hall did help ever so slightly to reduce the leakage of runs which had happened under Brooks (and I just poured my juice all over myself as I type this, I'm a tool!) but we were still going along at a healthy rate. The skip especially looked in fine touch getting boundaries all around the ground. If the bowlers put it full he drove them away and if they dropped short he pulled, cut and clipped them away. It really was a top class innings being built by him, but Cossy was also doing his part keeping the strike rotated, not letting the bowlers settle and frustrating them with a right-left combination.

By the end of the 12th over these two had already zoomed past the 50 partnership and Northants were already looking ragged, the skip was already closing on his half-century. I leant over to our spin bowler, Cosker:

"They keep this up and I ain't even gonna be needed "

"I'll take that, a nice score of 300+ would make bowling easy"

Talk about captain obvious

Eventually we came to the 15th over and it was the end of the powerplay overs. We were in a pretty sexy position at 81/1 with these two plundering runs with ease and had already put on 70 runs in their partnership. Vaas had been the pick of the bowlers with his 1 wicket, but there hadn't been very much to worry about, it was much more exciting observing Hall and the skip's private battle taking place out there. As long as this continued I could hopefully come in at the later part of our innings and swing away without too much pressure on me. Things were looking good

 

[Aditya]

Petersen is looking good at the pitch. You guys are going at a good run rate, if you continue this for at least 10 more overs then 300 is surely on the cards. One wicket here and the next man to come to bat will be Tom, who will smash a 50 ball century.

 

[Highlander999]

Northamptonshire fight back!

"Hey Tom, you heard Sangakarra has just retired as OD and 20/20 captain?"

"Ah no way, the guy is a total legend, big loss for Sri Lanka."

"Yeah, he is. Quality player as well."

Breaking news brought to you by James Harris news corporation Life was good at the moment. It was a lovely day here in Cardiff. The body was feeling good and the team were doing well. I was surrounded by some good mates, getting paid to do a job that I loved.

Out in the middle things really were going well. With the powerplay overs now finished, the Northants captain, Andy Hall, turned to his spinners to try and restrict the run-rate and hopefully (for him at least) get them back into the game. I was personally hoping the skip would tonk them out the ground for the rest of our innings It turned out it was again the battle of the South Africans, with Boje and Botha versus the skip. Maybe the rivalry got to the skip, I'm not too sure, but he came flying down the pitch to hit Botha back over his head and totally missed the ball. The ball clattered into the stumps and the cheers from the Northants boys showed how important that wicket was.

"Your time to shine Tom. Plenty of runs on the board so just get yourself in and don't do anything stupid."

Those were the parting words from the coach and the skip wished me luck as I passed him out on my way to the ground.

Cossy was waiting for me out in the middle a big grin on his chubby face

"Alright Tom, lovely day for batting, plenty of runs to be had. Boje and Botha are firing it in a wee bit without too much spin so just look for the gaps. We've got ourselves in a good position, we just need to play sensibly."

Wise words from our resident fat man There was a bit of banter flying around, especially as me and Andy Hall had used to be team-mates at Kent so I was getting a bit of a slagging off. A younger more immature Tom would have let it get under my skin but I just laughed it off and focused on working the ball around and getting my innings going

Things seemed to be going ok and the wicket of the skip just seemed like a minor blip. However, as the famous sledge goes, "One brings two" and it proved itself correct again Boje had really been keeping it tight. He was coming over the wicket to me and firing it into my legs and giving it a bit more flight to Cossy. He put quite a wide and full one down to Cossy and it just sat up on the pitch meaning Cossy couldn't quite control it. He ended up driving at it on the up and with his strength it fair rocketed away. Unfortunately for us it went straight to Hall, who made no mistake. We were now 3 down and needed to stabilise things!

Mike Powell was the replacement batsman for Cossy, and had been at Glamorgan for many a year and was a good solid bloke to have come in at 5 when we needed some stability. Having him at the other end was a nice reassurance as I knew that he was totally calm and would never get flustered.

I then had a lucky wee moment in which I really should have been out, if it hadn't been for some fielding worthy of Pakistan I came down the pitch (I really shouldn't have!!!) and tried to loft Botha for six. I didn't quite catch it all though and Sales at long-on settled himself underneath it. I was already back in the pavillion in my mind and I wasn't even watching. All of a sudden there was a groan and I looked to see Sales picking the ball up of the ground and most the Northants players standing there with hands on head. I was a very lucky man. Powell had a quick word:

"I hope that's your mad moment out of the way now. We all have them, just buckle down and most importantly, keep the ball on the ground!"

Wise words...

Of course it's all good being able to speak wisely like that, it's an entirely different matter in actually doing said words. After taking on board what Mike said, I made sure not a single shot of mine went in the air, I didn't want to give Northants any chances. Mike had played a few attacking shots including a cracking cover drive which seemed to pick up pace the further the distance it went from the bat.

Unfourtunately though, Mike turned out to be a bit of a hypocrite a few overs later. We had steadied the ship a wee bit and were now on 123/3 off 22 overs. Spin was still being used at both ends but we were going along at a decent enough rate. Mike though then had a rush of blood to the head, and came flying down the pitch to Botha. He got an outside edge off his attempted heave and ended up being bowled, but could also have been caught and stumped in the proccess This was really something we didn't need happening as we were now 4 wickets down and not even halfway through the innings yet.

As Mike walked off I gave him a long stare and raised an eyebrow. He knew I was not impressed with that shot especially after he had given me a bit of a bollocking for my stupid shot a few overs earlier. We were now in a bit of trouble...