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

[Griffo]

AHAHAH RAIN IS BAD FOR THE TEST(icles) AHAHHAHHAH

 

[Highlander999]

Spammer

Nearly 100 pages

 

[khalek]

Saqlain bowled awesome in the 1st innings, decent batting by Tea Baker in these conditions

Unfortunately this rain has messed all the fun up for spectators, but the players must be having fun out there

 

[Dr. Pepper]

Kangaroo testicles lawlzzzzzz. At least you ended up watching Mock The Week lol.

 

[tonka998]

Damn Rain! Grrr! Oh well, cant argue against an early night hey! Great pres as usual Tom Keep it up!

 

[Pakistani Army]

Damn Rain. Well Tom. You have just got to accept that you are living in a rain prone place (i.e: ENGLAND)

Great works mate!

 

[Jit]

Tom loves curry lol and great update mate always great to read it.

 

[shefellover93]

Where do you get all these videos Tom??? :P

KUTGW, really good story and not long to go now before 100 pages

 

[Highlander999]

A Difficult Morning for Glamorgan​

Now as you are aware. I really do hate alarm clocks. I hate being suddenly jolted awake and have recently taken to just ignoring them. Now Cooky was on my sofa last night. No idea how he got there, so I won't even try working it out. Anyway. Gemma bought this new alarm clock. It either wakes you up with a jolt or messes with your head. At 7:30 the fire alarm clock went off and I as usual fell out of bed and threw it across the room. Unfortunately for Cooky, a massive grin just spread across his face. Who could know what he was thinking off.........

You can ignore the second half

"Right you sick man. Up, up, up!!!!"

He didn't respond at all, and just rolled over with a massive grin on his face. The sick, dreaming wanna be hero This called for drastic action. My dear friend Simon would obviously want to be woken up so he wouldn't miss such a crucial match. There was only one alternative. The bucket of ice-cold water:

"OMG!!!!!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!! TOM I HATE YOU!!!!!"

:rtfl

He was awake. That damn bum needs to stop living in my house Perhaps I should do that to him more often to encourage him to reside in his own residence.

Not surprisingly Cooky left pretty quickly, which meant I could go back to my normal morning routine. Now I had a very unhealthy curry last night, so I should balance it out with something healthy for breakfast. I say I should In the end I did, as the one who must be obeyed arrived just I was getting the frying pan out so instead it was a rabbit breakfast for me I cancelled this out by stopping for a bacon buttie on the way to the ground. I do need my energy, especially when I am going to be bowling most of the day. She just wouldn't understand

At the ground I was busy telling everyone about the bucket of water incident with Cooky. It was a pretty popular story and everyone was laughing their heads off when Cooky walked in (last as usual.) Everyone stopped laughing straight away and looked at Cooky. Before I could react, Cooky whipped out a bucket of water he had been holding behind my back and threw it all over me

"I think we are even now "

Fair enough he had got me back. As everyone moved away, Cooky threw me a towel to dry myself up. Luckily I wasn't in my whites or else I would have been pretty damn annoyed. We spent quite a bit of time warming up this morning, especially us bowlers. In the nets, I felt in good touch and was getting some nice movement of the seam. We also had a good game of touch rugby and then spent the rest of the time stretching and just getting physically prepared. The skip gave us a good pep talk:

"Ok gents. Hope you had a good sleep. Great conditions for bowling today. There are already a few cracks on the pitch and the overcast conditions will really help you swing bowlers. The top order for Surrey is very strong, so if we can get down to the fifth or sixth wicket it should be plain sailing. We have a decent total on the board, but we still need good, sharp fielding. We can't afford any dropped catches. The plan will be for Dizzy and Cooky to open the bowling, with Tom to be the replacement bowler. After that, we will see how it goes. Ok, guys let's do this!"

I didn't mind being the replacement bowler. Obviously Dizzy would open and Cooky does have more experience then me. I was really looking forward to bowling to the likes of Butcher and Ramprakash. It would be a great experience for me.

As we finished our huddle, the openers, Newman and Benning, came striding out. These two had a lot of experience, so getting their wickets would be key. As Scott Newman prepared to face the first ball, there was a lot of chat flying around as we all tryed to buoy each other up. At third slip I had a cracking view of the action. Mark was really letting rip with the sledging. They had given him a hard time when he was batting and he was going to give these guys back what they deserved.

Dizzy's first over was a decent one, and Newman played and mised twice. Our job in the slips was to make sure he didn't settle down and eventually the square-leg umpire told us to tone it down. What a spoil sport Cooky also made a good start and was unlucky to have an LBW appeal turned down. We thought it had a chance so all went up and it looked pretty convincing. The replay on the big screen did show it just going over the top of middle and leg.

Unfortunately for us that was about the only chance that presented itself. At around 11:40 the skip gave me the signal to warm up. It looked like my chance was about to come. A couple of overs later and we still had not made a breakthrough. It was nearly mid-day and although not that many runs had been scored, the Surrey batsmen were beginning to look set. The skip came over and handed me the ball,

"Ok, Tom. We need a wicket. Some good swing bowling on the off-stump is what I want. Get it down that corridor of uncertainty."

"I'll be giving it my best shot."

I really wanted to impress and prove to the skip that I could be trusted with the new ball. We had two guys out on the pull as the batsmen had been favouring that shot. They would need to be alert.

That first ball was a cracker. The problem was, that it was too good, so that Benning couldn't actually put an edge on it. Pitching just short of a good length, it really seamed and swung at the same time, so that Mark ended up taking it in front of the skip at first slip. That was right on the money and it gave me just that little boost of confidence. I continued to come charging in there, but I was being really unlucky. The batsmen played and missed so many times it was just plain cruel on me. I managed to hit Benning in the ribs with a vicious short ball and Newman top edged a pull shot, only for a mis-communication between Dizzy and Tom to mean that it fell between them out in the deep. It was extremely frustrating.

Things got even more annoying for us and poor old Dizzy really began to lose his cool. This was the Jason Gillespie of old. Pace, swing and a good line finally earnt him a reward. He lured, Benning to drive at him and it took the edge of the bat :happy It went flying towards Mike at second slip, low to his left. It was a regulation chance and Dizzy's hands had already flown up in celebration. They quickly flew to his head in despair, as Mike fumbled and put it down We were so gutted. We thought we had the breakthrough, only for the catch to be spilled. Mike just lay there on the ground. He probably felt an inch tall. I tried to get the spirits raised up,

"Come on lads, this proves how bad they are. Great bowling Dizzy, you've got it right on the money this morning. You've got their wicket with your name on it. Don't worry Mike, Dizzy will have this wannabe's stumps flying soon."

I was desperate for a wicket now. The beast in me had been unleashed and the Surrey batsmen felt the full brunt of it. I did a whole over of short pitched deliveries and I had the batsman ducking and diving all over the place. I wanted to make it as uncomfortable for these guys as possible. Still, however, we could not get a wicket. The skip took out a tired Dizzy who had put down an agressive spell and replaced him with Tom. Hopefully the spin and guile of Tom at one end and the pace and agression of me at the other, would be enough to get the batsmen to make a mistake. I had a conversation with Dizzy about what would be the best plan as we took a drinks break.

"Your short pitched deliveries are hurting them, but they aren't going to get us a wicket. You have to use them as a surprise ball, then there is a chance of a top edge. Just keep it on that off-stump and you will get a wicket soon enough. These two are experienced enough, but it doesn't matter how good and a veteran of cricket you are, a seaming ball on off-stump with a good length will always cause you problems."

Good advice there from a seasoned bowler. I had probably been using the short ball a bit too much and Dizzy was right. It should be the surprise ball. I went back to trying to get the edge.

That edge didn't come and the batsmen began to attack Tom quite a bit. Unfortunately for us, they soon reached the 50 partnership. There had probably been a wee bit too many extras given away. Myself and Dizzy were guilty of that as we really had been trying to get just that little bit more. With a front foot no-ball costing two runs it had been expensive. There just seemed to be no way through these two.

Depressingly myself and Tom still could not get a wicket. The skip told me that he wanted the two Tom's to bowl out the session, so we were probably being expected to pick up a wicket. As it neared lunch, the batsmen went into their shells and would not play at anything if it was not going to hit the stumps. I ended up having to bowl really full, just to try and get them to play which left me vunerable to the drive. This did happen a couple of times, which was incredibly frustrating. With Tom they just started kicking lots of his deliveries away, or else just padded up. The boys in the field were trying to keep our spirits up, but it was very dis-heartining seeing a batsman play so defensive and knowing that there was nothing you could do about it.

Soon the umpires announced it was lunch. It was probably a good time for it to come for us. It had got into the situation where we were just using overs up with very little happening. As we all trooped of we knew that the session had belonged to the Surrey opening batsmen. They might not have been scoring at a lightening fast rate, but they had kept the scoreboard ticking over, and more importantly had seen off the new ball. As we all headed into the pavillion there was very little chat going on. It was a stark contrast to the loud team that had exited that same door at 11 that very morning. We would need to perform better in the afternoon session.

None of the bowlers had been expensive. Dizzy had been the pick though, going for only 13 runs during his six overs. Cooky had been the most expensive going at only three an over, which really did show how tight we had kept it. I was pleased with my economy rate, but was still annoyed that I didn't have a wicket. If I was too be frank, Surrey should have been two down by now. Mike should have taken that chance of Dizzy's bowling. Also Tom and Dizzy should have communicated better out in the deep, of that mis-timed pull shot, from my bowling. Still we had to keep our heads up and the lunch break would be a good time for us to re-build. I hoped it would be at least...

 

[just_cricket]

Some good experienced batting there from the Surrey openers. It sounds like you're having one of those really frustrating days. Still, to beat the bat that often at first class cricket must really make you feel like you belong there...
Great story keep it up I really like the originality of your posts.

 

[mattfb]

Awesome read there. Unlucky not to get a wicket. Sounds like you had them uncomfortable early so it would be frustrating they got off the hook.

Great presentation and fantastic writing. kiu!

 

[Griffo]

What a boring update lol... I waited for that?

 

[Dr. Pepper]

That first ball was a cracker. The problem was, that it was too good, so that Benning couldn't actually put an edge on it

In other words, it went 5 feet wide and went all the way to the boundary for 4 byes .

Yeah what a boring update! About 4 pages of writing but no wickets. Well it's no surprise really with you on the bowling attack.

Lol at the bucket of water, If that ever happened to me, I'd go pyscho .

 

[shantanu_rooney]

Really well written Tom. You have bowled well in your 8 overs but now time to take some wickets...Glamorgan need wickets..Poor catch drop in the slips should have been taken.

Well written again...Story gets interesting as it progresses.

 

[saladguy]

I gotta try that water thing on my mates