14th June 2008 Back to 1st Team
Loperwood Park
On a hot day at Loperwood Park, Calmore faced a hard battle against a Locks Heath team who had broken top of the league Sarisbury’s, 100% record the week before with a side with a mixed blend of youth and experience captain James Rose won the toss and elected to have a bat. Calmore’s Line up in batting order, Steve Dunn, Nick Coe, James Rose, Ben Perry, Mark Lavelle, Tommy Pegler, Nigel Hill, Roy Walton, Ollie Tull, Mike Cook and Wicketkeeper Paul Bowring.
Calmore did not get off to the greatest start with Steve Dunn going 5th ball of the game caught at 1st slip for 0, leaving an out of form James Rose to enter the crease. Rose and Coe had a tricky opening 6 overs where runs were hard to come by, Coe and Rose were dropped at slip and short cover respectively . After a big period of frustration where Coe was timing shots straight to fielders he tried to push on and go over the top only to be caught at mid off for 3. Leaving Calmore 23-2. In at number 4 was Ben Perry who to his own honesty had dipped in form a bit, but showed no signs of this with a beautifully timed drive down the ground for 4, the introduction of the spinners, saw Rose push on and target the shorter boundary on the leg side, but not long after passing the 50 mark Rose made a mistake and was caught and bowled for 51 leaving Calmore 102-3 off 20 overs. This brought in number 5 Mark Lavelle who like Perry and Rose was struggling to find form, which in the early stages of his innings showed, runs were then hard to come by and with Perry the settled batsman he looked to take on the bowlers he looked on top before mis-timing one straight down mid-ons throat for a patient 29, leaving 2 new batsman at the crease in Lavelle and the inform Pegler with Calmore at 104-4 they looked in trouble but a few overs of getting used to the pace helped rebuild the Calmore innings again with Lavelle looking less frustrated and Pegler nerd ling 1s and 2s Lavelle took it to the bowlers hitting a big 6 onto the top of the pavilion and then a nicely timed 4 before hitting one big shot to many he was caught at long off for 31 but Calmore pushed on towards the end of his innings, with Pegler playing big shots around all parts of the ground on his may to a brilliant 54, and with the rest of the bowlers down the lower order hitting out, Walton, Calmore had found themselves 233-8 at the end of there innings.
Calmore then set to the field and Walton took got them an early breakthrough in the 1st over caught behind, but that was the only wicket in the first 10 overs and the Locks Heath Batsman played there shots and were 50-1 after 10. Then some tight bowling from Walton Hill and Lavelle Locks Heath were tied down up until 20 overs where they had only added an extra 18 runs, this period getting Calmore well and truly back in the game, the introduction of Rose was the turning point with a wicket in his 1st over, Calmore were in control some resilience from the remaining opener was cook broken by Cook who bowled him middle stump, wickets then began to tumble with Rose and Cook taking there share before some superb batting from the 2 Locks heath youngsters frustrated Calmore who then become lazy in the field with Locks Heath getting back into the game every over, but Hill got the breakthrough needed and after that there was only 1 winner as Calmore finished of the innings with the pick of the bowlers James Rose 4-49 and Cook picking up 3 wickets Calmore won by 35 runs.
By Mark Lavelle