AUSTRALIA 050S UK TOUR 2017

GAME 9 AUSTRALIA 050S VS WORCESTERSHIRE 050S

AT KIDDERMINISTER CC WORCESTERSHIRE

FRIDAY 27th JULY 2017

The game of cricket is world-renown

And mostly played by gents,

But in this game are many things

that really don’t make sense.

One thing that appeared to make no sense was when Worcestershire won the toss and sent the Australian Over 50s cricket team into bat on a glorious hot afternoon on a hard and fast county wicket. Maybe it was the foibles of new stand in Captain and President of Australian Over 50s Association Mal Coleman and the adoption of pink balls for today’s game. However it may make sense when the weather forecast was taken into account. The usual prediction- sunny but prospect of rain.

We had finally reached our last game of our Midland’s tour and today we were at picturesque Kidderminster oval and the carpet kingdom of the world.

The team for today was Mal Coleman Capt; Alan Chellew; Gordon McGurk; Ross Belstead; Clayton Johnson wkper; Tim Sargent; Paul Stenhouse; Geoff Doyle; Steve Moore; Mick Munro;;Peter Judd; Noel Raymond

Opener Alan Chellew had developed neck stiffness from a defective pillow and so was in some grief. Nevertheless he opened the batting with “Pirate” Ross Belstead who hadn’t seen much of the strike recently. His stay on the high seas was short lived and he walked the plank on 1 at the score on 7. Gordon McGurk hit his usual 41 before being bowled and in the meantime Chellew bashed 40 retired. Things were making more sense now.

Newly arrived wicketkeeper Clayton Johnson showed his wares with 28 including a massive 6 and 4x 4s whilst opening bowler Tim Sargent went the same way as Pirate –out caught off his plank for 4. Despite Geoff Doyle accumulating 39 we continued to lose wickets until the final bell tolled at 9-211 off 35 overs. In all of this flurry rain had interrupted play for an hour so it was now a 36 over game. Local West Indian Leo Monclieffe had captured 4-26 in a fiery spell of fast bowling reminiscent of Malcom Marshall.