Thursday 15th May 2024
LEYLAND & DISTRICT LEAGUE DIV-3: Eagle Reds 190-169 Wymott
v MAURICE JACKSON L 14-21
Just like a spell of good weather, good form also has to break eventually and I couldn't find a way of holding off the deluge of good bowling that Maurice Jackson produced.
Things didn't go to plan from the off as I focused on getting a good start. Actually a touch unlucky to go go six down as I did, but what's a home game these days if I don't lose the first four ends?
I managed to grind a way back to 8-9 and stay in the game at 11-12, but I couldn't keep hold of the block for more than a couple of ends and there was just a sense that Maurice still had the upper hand here. Aside from his own excellent lead bowling, the Wymott number ten was clinically disruptive from the back. Under pressure but still managing to put up a fight with some good woods, to see them knocked out with this sort of regularity is deflating to say the least.
Maurice continued to put the squeeze on me and started to regain that early lead going towards to important end of the match. When he did give me scope to break, I sent two agonisingly short bowls. Tension had got to me. I could feel my face all flushed up.
I hadn't given up, but when Maurice gets to nineteen, rolls a couple of feet short and I bend around his bowl to rest on the jack, his sublime second bowl to tap me out again sort of sums up the night really. Stunned to distraction at that shot, my second didn't quite find the road and it was another brilliantly landed second bowl by Maurice on the last end that beat my more than reasonable one to finish the game.
Overall, I just wasn't getting a length at times. I was hoping our green would have had been freshly cut, instead it was a bit sticky and certainly more of a leveller for I felt there was nowhere to go to try and catch Maurice out.
This is no criticism of our Geoff "The Grasscutter" Bibby, merely that a quicker running green might have suited me more against Wymott's best player.
Bitterly disappointed with probably five or six ends where I missed opportunities to score or make a two, I got myself a bit tensed up and it just wasn't happening for me tonight.
Should've done this, could've done that... but beaten by the better player and of that there is no doubt.
With that win, Maurice replaces me at the top of the Division Three Averages table, and that's a relief in some ways because folk have been talking about it and perhaps I felt an added pressure. Defeat and a dip off the radar for a week will hopefully do me the world of good in the long term. I've said I'm not bothered about the merit table of averages and it's difficult not to acknowledge it when you're nevertheless aware of it.
More importantly anyway, a fourth win of the season for our team with seven winners. More wins than the whole of last season I think? Harry's Thursday night brigade are now ticking along nicely in the region of lower mid-table.
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