Ivanhoe v Rivetts – 17 July 2010  

After the usual gallows humour in the post match pub discussions I did think about being flippant about Andy C’s failure to complete the match saying that he hadn’t put his heart into his cricket yesterday.  But of course that wouldn’t be true, and as always despite it soon becoming obvious to everyone that all was not well with him he bowled 4 overs with his usual enthusiasm, conceding only 6 runs, took first wicket and chased the ball to the boundary to save 4 runs before the seriousness of his situation became apparent.   I’m just delighted that the insistence he go to hospital was the right call and after further confirmation on Sunday afternoon that he will be out of hospital either Monday or Tuesday look forward to seeing him back soon if he can be dragged away from the nurses at Harefield who were ‘doing something to my groin’  on Saturday evening which seemed to be making him very happy.  

As to the match, an interesting start to the afternoon and every Fixture Sec’s nightmare when both Rivetts and next week’s opposition, Wealdstone Corinthians arrived to play – one for Ciaran to unravel this week.   In the end Wealdstone graciously withdrew and the match as planned with Rivetts went ahead.  After Andy’s departure the game was for a while disjointed with Andy H also off with a calf injury and acting as emergency chauffer for Andy so a good bowling start with Andy H taking 1 for 10 from 7 overs to some extent slipped away despite wickets continuing to fall.  Richard (2 for 29 from 8 overs) bowled a good spell and Phil P (1 for 41 from 6 overs) and Adrian (1 for 43 from 5 overs) all chipped in with wickets, aided by Ciaran (0 for 34 from 6 overs) and Denis (0 for 16 from 4), In the end mainly thanks to the to their opener scoring 90 Rivetts posted a score of 190 for 7 in their 40 overs. Mention should also go to Ciaran for a good catch at mid off for the first wicket, Denis and Phil K with a catch each and Richard with 2 catches and a run outfrom deep cover.  

The reply got off to a bad start with both Denis and Bob quickly back in the pavilion and it was left to Adrian again to drop anchor to score 60 with contributions from Phil K (8), Malcolm (18) , Sid (6) Richard (3) and Ciaran with 7no at the end to  take the score to 127 for 7 at the close .  Not a close finish but in the scheme of things really not that important on the day.