Welcome to Wizzy News for this week – our weekly roundup of news and events at Wisborough Green Cricket Club.

Last Saturday marked the final Senior League games of the season with a must win game for our First X1 in the battle of the Greens. Lose the game and its out of our hands to remain in Div 5 – win the game and our position in the division is secured. With one of our batters knocking off an undefeated 56 off 18 balls last week, would the form continue into the game ? See the match report below.

Dorset tour

After a rest of over 10 years WGCC is on tour to Dorset this weekend with a total of around 30 players from both the women’s and men’s team participating.

The tourists are travelling to the vibrant seaside city of Bournemouth to enjoy a spicy Tour meal this Friday evening. With our accommodation not far from the excitement of the city centre and sandy beach side amusements there is much to explore.

After breakfast on Saturday morning, the women’s team are travelling to Wimborne CC for a morning softball T16 match whereupon the rest of the tour will join to gather for a BBQ lunch ahead of the afternoon’s men’s match. The tour party will be bussed back to Bournemouth to further experience the adventures that the city has to offer.

The women’s team were going to leave on Sunday morning to attend the Women’s Sussex Hardball Champion’s Finals in Horsham having won their divisional league, but this has thankfully been postponed to next Sunday 21st because the weather. We look forward to having the ladies on tour for a bit longer and supporting them in numbers next Sunday.

The men have a leisurely morning and will drive to Ferndown Wayfarers CC for a BBQ lunch followed by an afternoon 35 over match and travel home from the game.

Very much looking forward to a memorable tour with a great crowd and much merriment, laughter and a little bit of cricket!

Team selections for the tour

End of Season dinner and awards – Friday 3rd October

Our end of season dinner and awards is always a highlight of the season – a time to reflect to the highs and lows of the season and to hand out some awards. Places are limited so please reserve your spot as soon as possible to avoid disappointment. Please email Jonny Farmer at jon.farmer87@gmail.com with your menu choices.

Congratulations

It’s always good to see Wisborough Green players feature on the County Honours Boards – it’s not often we have players on both the Batting and Bowling Honours boards in the same week. Well done Nick and Hugo 👏👏👏

Congratulations to all those who have made it onto the club’s Honours Boards this week

Match reports

First X1 vs Barns Green

Battle of The Greens

• We welcomed Barns Green to Wisborough on the last day of the season – only one result assured our safety from relegation – a big W!
• We won the toss, with BG only turning up 25 mins before the game, and decided to bowl (having only won chasing all year)
• Step up Hugo March – some brilliant bowling picking up 5 wickets for just 15 runs in his 8 overs
• Vickery (as usual) and Griffiths (unusually) were costly
• Wolfie comes on and immediately removes the stubborn opener with a sharp bit of keeping from Reed
• Wolfie ran through the tail to finish with 3 for 19 from 7 overs
• BG were all out for 165
• Thanks to the Cricketers for another lovely cricket tea
• Vickery and Klein opened the batting – focused on not giving BG a sniff, a couple of quick wickets and 165 could look daunting. 
• But Vickery and particularly Klein punished the bowling 
• Klein in particular with some lovely destructive hitting 
• Green raced to 100 run opening stand in just 9 overs
• Vickery on 46 and eyeing another 50, chipped on tamely to short mid wicket – but with 119 on the board we were nearly there
• Klein continued to hit the ball to all parts and quickly got into the nineties
• Could he get his second ton of the season in just 40 balls? A few jitters in the nervous nineties were dispelled when one finally sailed for six and the crowd erupted! 
• Kleino finished on 107* with just 47 balls faced and along with Tommy (7*) finished the game off to secure our safety

NEVER…..IN…..DOUBT!!!

Please click here for the full scorecard

Dan Vickery – Captain

Second X1 vs Lancing Manor

And so it ends.

Our season of official mourning. Cricket is dead. Long live cricket.

More on that later.

Second XI’s last game of the season was a meaningless occasion where we delivered 30 points which had no bearing on anything form a league perspective. Actually a rather enjoyable afternoon played on a ground with a large spinney of trees over the bowlers head which made for an amusing scorebook phenomenon of hitting a “2” if the ball went anywhere near them.

Invited to bat, we racked up 235, all out in the last over. Palmer squandered a chance for big runs, but Jack Dixon (56) and Juan Vorster (81) cashed in to get us a competitive total. Slightly wary of the fact that Lancing had two players in the top 5 league runs scorers suggested this was no walk over.

A delicious home-made tea full of delicacies, specially made for us after we offered Cricks style hospitality to them earlier in the season, once again demonstrated that, contrary to last season’s video evidence, the spirit of Vickery can make you friends across the cricket clubs of Sussex.

They never seems to want to go near our total – we took wickets regularly. Harvey Bartholomew bowled beautifully for 2-30 off 9, Joshy D did what he does 3-26, Phil Maggs chipped in with 3-37 and Jack Dixon held 3 smart catches for Lancing to end on 167 off their 40.

Job done, 30 points. 5th place secured.

So. The verdict. Well, now’s not the time for the debrief – it’s the time to celebrate my marvellous group of team mates who have turned up, tried hard, laughed lots, caught lots, dropped lots, drank lots of beer and just been extremely good company on a Saturday afternoon during the summer. Thanks to the old lags (and the loot), welcome to the newbies. Apologies to those who haven’t played as much as they wanted, it’s tough I know, but competition is a good thing in a club like ours. Enjoy your over winter. It’s only 174 sleeps till nets start again.

Specific thanks to Peter – despite being fingered by him several times over the summer, we’re still friends and he remains a valued stalwart, and amusing sparing partner. Also to Susana and Lesley for scoring so beautifully and being great company – your time and support is massively appreciated.

I look forward to telling tall tales of touring success and a fuller run down at the Club dinner on October.

Please click here for the full scorecard

Tim Palmer – Captain

End of season clean-up

Many thanks to all the players who turned up to give us a hand with a massive and long-outstanding clean-up – all made possible by Colbrans, our very own Tommy’s company who loaded up carted away the piles of rubbish that accumulated over many years. We finally have an upstairs store with space we can be proud of .. 🤩

And finally

That’s it for this week.

If there is anything we need to know you know where to find us

Have a great cricketing week 🏏😊

Cheers

Wizzy