Indoor Cricket - a new beginning?

Swindon Cricket Club used to dominate indoor cricket in the town. They had four sides in the league, and one season in the eighties the club's first three sides finished in the top three positions in division one. During this period the Club's first team squad made the Lord's finals three times, winning the National Championship on one occasion.

However in recent years the Club's senior players have preferred to take a break from cricket in the winter months. It reached the point when there was only one player from the first and second Saturday elevens wanting to play, and the Club seriously considered dropping out of the competition completely for the 2001/2001 season.

The enthusiasm of the younger members in the thirds and fourths persuaded the Club to re-think and two teams were entered in the bottom division, on the understanding that they would be drawn exclusively from the Club's junior (Under-18 and below) squads. So far (Jan 2002) this has been a great success, albeit that the 'first' team have yet to win and the 'second' (younger!) team have won all but one of their games!

The following analysis of the 'first' and 'second' squads was submitted by members of the sides:

'First' Six:

Frizzy - Good attacking batting and decent opener. Good bowling spells.
Quick and penetrative. Always full of encouragement and lots of red bull.
Good fieldind at all times to as is expected from the next Jonty Rhodes!

Thommo - Good opening bat, steady but never really gets going, like frizzy.
Good wicketkeeping but prone to odd lack in concentration.

Junior Thommo - Superb!The 'fill in no.6' batted well for the cup game and
almost caused an upset. Has only produced the one good performance with the
bat unfortunately. Takes good catches in the field aswell and doesn't make
many, if any mistakes in the field.

Flipper - Steady batsman, usually good bet to get runs (Willis stay away!)
however, he has been trying to force runs with big shots instead of playing
his natural game of timing. Good acurate bowling of steady pace. Sometimes
lacks rythm but often recovers.

Tribbsy - Has batted well after a steady start to the year. Is now scoring
for fun at the crease. If he recovers from his back he should produce some
match-winning performances.Fielding has been good and after his introduction
to the bowling after a few games has began to find his line and rythm.

Stephen Cole - Good couple of performances in the first couple of games
before being dropped. Good few runs and accurate bowling most of the time.

'Second' Six:

Rich New:-
Rich is improving every game with his bowling, very accurate and quick and makes it count when the team need it the most. His batting is also improving but in recent games has let him down.


Liam New:-
Liam is a very good bowler with either spin or speed but in recent games he has not been bowling to his full potential. He has been batting very well lately and has kept his side in the games at times. Still yet to win the toss, but then he has always been known to be a useless tosser.


Antony Spencer:-
Antony has batted very well throughout the indoor season. He lets himself down with a bad shot that costs him his wicket but has managed to control himself lately and has batted superbly. When he is not needed to wicket keep he fields well and also wicket keeps well.


Arran Dickinson:-
Arran has opened well this season with Spence! He has had a few run outs causing a couple of ducks but on the good side he has scored highly recently with a partnership of 40 with Spence to win a game. On the bowling side he has done very well taking about 12 wickets and looks like he should be bowling regularly next season!


Matty Gumm:-
Matty has done very well behind the wickets and is showing what he is capable of. When the team has needed Matty to produce the goods with the bat he has not let them down, and is improving more and more every game.


Michael Pook:-
Pooky has bowled very well, and just seems to be getting better and better. He has also batted very well and has scored runs in every game, but a few bad shots have caused him to lose his wicket.