On arriving at the ground, I have never in my very privileged time of over 40 years playing at The Valley seen it looking better! While our Valley team included 3 Bens – “young” Ben Aveyard, “middle” Ben Rogers and “Big” Ben Larter.
On a lovely warm sunny day Ellery won the toss for the Tait Communications XI and elected to bat, and after being 9/2 Ellery himself and Les Humphries started taking advantage of the excellent true pitch with good bounce, and fast outfield, to start scoring freely. They had taken the score to 56 when Big Ben took a terrific running catch at long-on to remove Ellery, off Jamie Livingstone (having his first bowl since February, a good one). But this brought Sean Stagg in, all-round scourge of our team in last year’s close battle, and he and Les had rattled the score on up to 107/3 at drinks after 20 overs, at an impressive nearly 5.5 an over.
After drinks though our 2 spinners Wade Millar and Paul Dearsley both bowled well in tandem and pegged the scoring rate back, then after Les then Sean had both retired for very well made 40’s, Wade made further inroads with a double-wicket over. Middle Ben chipped in with 2 wickets in a valuable little spell and we had done well to have them 168/9 before the 2 retired batsmen returned. They rattled on another 22 before Big Ben capped an extremely good all-round performance by bowling Sean – Ben ended up with 2-13, THE catch and a run-out. Jonathan Davidson also got a run-out with a great side-on throw and overall our fielding was of a very high standard, with only 1 hard chance missed. Tony Danenberg kept very well, holding 2 good catches.
Following an excellent afternoon tea, our openers were soon into their work, and when Simon Carter was out in the 10th over after a good innings of 23 the score was already 53. Our other opener, young Ben batted superbly well and Mark Hume also hit the ball beautifully, both ended up retiring after an excellent partnership and at drinks, we were well on track at 125/1. Jonathan Davidson added to his consistently good record at the ground with 25, including 2 absolutely massive 6s, and Big Ben also hit 2 huge 6’s in his innings, before being caught on the boundary for 16. All the while middle Ben was batting very steadily and well, eventually finishing on 26* as we reached 192/3 with 5 overs to spare – a tribute to the top quality of the pitch.
For the Tait XI Ellery bowled well and economically and Les followed up his terrific batting with the best bowling figures, while they were handicapped by Sean (the destroyer of our middle order last year in a 6 run loss) being injured. Although he still mustered impressive pace a couple of times from just a 2 yard run up! And their opening bowler Tanya was accurate, after earlier hitting a couple of impressive boundaries. But the stand out in their effort was Khasi – who had the misfortune to have his first 2 balls both snicked at catchable height through the slips, then next over dropping a hard caught and bowled that injured his hand. But he stayed on and later took an extremely well-judged catch, off an enormous skier from Jonathan, just in front of the bar.
As always many thanks are due to our fine and friendly hosts on the day, Phil and John. Thanks too to Graham Aveyard for umpiring all of the 1st innings, though naturally, he didn’t want to umpire the 2nd innings as his son was opening! While our 3 Bens were responsible for 92 of our runs and 6 of the dismissals in the field – so echoing the captain’s pre-match comment, they definitely did help ensure we BENt the Tait XI to our will 🙂 And finally, we were pleased to record the first win in 3 games against the Tait XI, in a game played totally in the best spirit of the Valley – with the perfect weather and ground conditions making the day an absolute pleasure 🙂
Scores:
Tait XI – 190 (L. Humphries 53*, S, Stagg 48, B. Larter 2-13, B. Rogers 2-14, W. Millar 2-32.
Valley of Peace – 192/3 (B. Aveyard 41 retired, M. Hume 41 retired, B. Rogers 26*, J. Davidson 25, S. Carter 23, L. Humphries 2-26)
Bert Walker
Valley of Peace Captain
