Wizzy News 12 Sept 2024

Welcome to the penultimate Wizzy News of the season. If you missed last week’s edition please click here

Only one game to report on this week – the final weekend of the season. With the Second X1 game against Barns Green called off because of a waterlogged pitch it was left to the First X1 to host Rustington in the final match of the season. The game will no doubt be remembered for a variety of reasons but the overriding memory will most certainly be the magnificent maiden century by our First X1 skipper Dan Vickery in somewhat testing circumstances .. .

Thank you Shirley

Its always nice to start Wizzy News on sweet note – thank you to Shirley for your lovely gesture which was appreciated by all the players …

Honours Boards

Hot on the heels of last week’s entries onto the County wide Batting Honours board – we have another fantastic performance to celebrate this week ….

Congratulations to the players who feature on the Club’s Honours Board this week

Seniors End of Season Dinner

The Seniors End of Season Dinner will be taking place on Friday 27 September at the The Sir Roger Tichborne pub in Alfold – please make a note in your diaries. Places are limited so please book early.

Match Reports

First X1 vs Rustington

Players and umpires observing a minute’s silence before the game in memory of Daniel Oliver, Sussex Cricket League committee member and stalwart of Sussex cricket who sadly passed away the previous weekend

With conditions to get a game looking extremely testing I probably should have called it there – hindsight is wonderful (as I would be reminded continuously throughout the day)
Finally winning a toss that I had been searching for all season WG had a bowl
Rustington came out swinging, with the openers either finding the boundary or the edge
The second edge went straight to first slip and the rest as they say is history…..gone are the days of captains giving the County Times a few lines following an eventful match – for this one TikTok is your best bet, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it made the local Gazette
After the restart – Rustington kept coming, and despite making a few breakthroughs they kept chucking the bat at everything
The bowlers and fielders worked hard and we kept chipping away
Rustington ended with a mammoth 305 for 8 off 34 overs
I’d like to say the game was in the balance at the half way stage, but to be honest many of us just wanted the weather to intervene as soon as possible…..no more so than umpire Peter Mattock who at this stage wasn’t feeling the curry he had planned!!!
Kleino (Nick Klein) and I padded up and eventually made it to the middle ..
After blocking out the first over for a maiden – with the ball popping off a good length – I realised this was shaping to be a long slog (slog being the optimum word)
Long being the opposite of what Kleino had in mind (as usual) and was unfortunately making his way back to the shed after one ball
With Rustington rushing through their overs with spin at both ends – I was joined by Willbo (Will Dixon) and we chucked our arms at everything that was there to go at, one with more grace than the other
After a few lovely shots from Willbo, he again came unstuck with the Willbo flick over midwicket going straight to the boundary rider
Wisborough found themselves at 50-2 a bit of a job on our hands to make this one respectable
But, now joined by Will Crombie, I had my eye in and cow corner was about to take a battering
Crombie rotated the strike nicely and I was going hard at everything
In the blink of an eye I suddenly found myself approaching a ton and, having spent hours trying to get the game on earlier in the day, for first time in the game I started to enjoy myself
Slowing down slightly in the 90s I was unusually patient, waiting for the bad ball, and when it came I dispatched it to bring up my first ever century. It was a great moment for me personally, with everyone on their feet cheering (thank you lads I appreciate all the support you have given me over the season), I then saluted the Ken Vickery end and the emotions got the better of me!!
After catching my breath, Crombie had also joined the party, and we again started taking the attack to the Rustington players
With only two wickets down and nearly 250 on the board Rustington were scared that Duckworth Lewis might go against them
They huddled up, and with the light quickly fading they turned to their usual openers – apparently having no slow bowling options available
Crombie continued to tuck in but it was becoming hard to see and at 250 for 2, Peter had had enough – rightly calling the game for bad light
Crombie ended with a classy 61 not out – and our unbroken partnership had just reached 200!
Id like to thank Peter for all his efforts throughout the season, along with Rob, David, Caroline and Suzana for scoring for us this year
I think we can all agree that the game was more eventful than any of us had expected or wanted – especially Peter, sorry again for putting you through that one mate!