Tweenhills vs Kingsclere Twenty20 Round-Up

On the evening of Thursday 18 July the Tweenhills Tigers cricket XI took on a team from the Andrew Balding stable in Twenty20 at Kingsclere, a home fixture for the latter squad. Could the Tigers be tamed?

Self-appointed Tweenhills captain Ivo Thomas won the toss – make up your own punchlines – and elected to bat first. Both teams had agreed that each batsman would retire at 20 runs but would be allowed to return to the crease should all batsmen after them get out.

First up for the visitors was Alex Holmes, husband of Tweenhills stud secretary Karen who had said he’d played cricket for Scotland. We are not even sure he had played in Scotland as he was out very first ball. When Karen had told Alex she wanted something Platinum this summer we don’t think she meant a Platinum Duck.

“Tapper” Thomas walked up to the wicket next with the typical confidence of a Yorkshireman in pads and, rather annoying to everyone not on his team, he had a knock of 20 and swaggered back to the pavilion. His innings included a 6 that almost took out the BBQ, so he was in danger of being even more hated by the Balding team.

If Ivo’s 20 was agricultural then Tweenhills’ ‘overseas player’ Dan Conolly hit a more classical 20. Dan is son of our new Farm Manager Michael Conolly and can certainly play again.

Pub Cricketer of The Year George Palin scored an honourable 18, swinging the bat at everything and getting a big 6. However, his housemate young Seb Thompson, who had used the words “proper cricketer” for several weeks beforehand, must have been talking about someone else as he scored 4 off 10 balls. Also, in for mickey-taking on the way home was Alfie Larcombe who got 3 runs off 5 balls – stick to the rugby, son.

Talking of rugby, Hubie Redvers hit a beautiful shot first ball only to find the tallest fielder on the pitch, England U18s second-row Jonno Balding. Hubie was joined on the team by his uncle Josh Dugdale and cousin Ferdy. Stud Manager Pieter Van Zyl also made our XI.

Arguably star player for Tweenhills was recent signing Harry Thompson, who proved he was no relation to Seb by hitting several 6s for a knock of 23. Harry told us all pre-match he was leading player in Ireland 4 years in a row but maybe it was hurling the way he was swinging the bat.

We think we scored 109 in 20 overs. Then came our bowling.

Our Zimbabwean man Dan came up trumps with 3 wickets – some all-round performance.

Alfie redeemed himself for 10mins by taking 2 wickets but then dropped an easy catch whilst presumably still celebrating his short-lived success.

Hubie and George were our 2 pace bowlers and, whilst no wickets were taken, they undoubtedly ruffled a few feathers in order to for the slower bowlers to make hay.

Sadly, it was to no avail though as they chased us down with an over and a half to spare. But we’ll just say one final thing: their opening batsman, who happened to be another Balding son, Toby, left the field at 20 runs but came back in before their whole team had batted.

Make up your own minds as to who were the moral winners.

Joking aside, thanks to all at Kingsclere for organising a fantastic evening and roll on the rematch!