Cardiff Cavaliers Cricket Club

2007: mid-season review

Here we are, both chronologically and fixturely [Ed: what lexicon was put in his muesli this morning …] at the half way stage of the season and, as is the usual practice [Ed: well, he did it once last year for the first time] thought it’d be interesting to give a little recap on how things are going and performances [Ed: some of this shouldn’t be shown to minors or, in the case of our Hon Sec, to his trusty hound].

Firstly team performances. Last year we won 8 fixtures in the whole season (plus 3 walkovers) so to have registered 6 wins already, including 2 against a team, The Consmen, who we’ve never ever beaten before, and two Sunday games when we are not necessarily at our strongest, is a fine performance.

The early part of the season also saw us register our highest ever score, 259, against Sri Lankans that took us to the brink of an improbable victory that would’ve been unsurpassed in Cavaliers history.

In the Willow competitions we’ve reached the semi-final of the Cup and have won 2 of our 5 League games to leave us intriguingly placed for the cut to see if we can make it into the Shield competition in the second half of the season. There are three teams clear at the top who will definitely be in the Shield and then just 1.1 points covering the next 4 teams, with ourselves lying in seventh position.

Secondly, personal performances. We have a large and strong squad to select from (34 paid up members) and in the 21 fixtures to date the selectorial panel has had to be constituted for each and every game. This is unprecedented and is already continuing into July. There have been many debutants with some of them, like Derek "Geisha" Lewis snaring a wicket with their first ball in Cavalier colours and Matt "Trigger" Thomas taking 2 wickets in his first ever over.

Despite the worst efforts of the rain, which has seen over a quarter of our fixtures washed out, most people have played several games (between 5-9) with just a couple of guys reaching double figures in appearances and only a few guys who've been selected for fewer than 2 in 3 of the games for which they've been available so the selectors seem to be balancing the squad pretty well. Of those restricted to 2 games or less this has been due to a combination of their lack of availability, injury and/or misfortune to have been selected for games that were then rained off.

Batting: setting the early pace is Nick “Meat Loaf” Hutchings who is averaging 44 (176 runs from 5 innings), followed closely by Andrew “Dog Crusher” Steadman who has an amazing 346 runs from 10 innings (average 38.44). Others averaging over 20 are Grizz (107 at 26.75) and Glenn (20.33) with the figures for Radar (26) and Joey (44) being distorted by their small number of innings and their large number of “not outs”. JD has scored well over 100 runs (153 at 15.3) and Jimmy has passed 100 also (112 at 18.67). Warwick, Simmo and Dave P are not far behind in reaching the century milestone.

At the lower end, Caesar has yet to open his account and the Dog Whispering Oracle has the lowest calculable average, 2 [Ed: just as well he contributes in other ways!]

Bowling: the team scores (both for and against) suggest we’ve tended to play on better batting tracks, so fair dues to some of lads for their bowling figures, led by Rhidian who has taken 7 victims at 15.86, Jimmy with 8 wickets at 16.75 and Dave P also with 8 (at 18.13). JD is the leading wicket taker with 9 (at 28.22) and then Simmo has 8 (at 27.87) and Grizz, Steaders and Jason all have 7 each at 20.29, 21.74 and 26.28 respectively.

Vince, Matt, Glenn and JT haven’t yet got enough overs under their belt but if they continue with their early form then they’ll be in the mix come the end of the season.

There are a couple of guys who will be hoping to leave the Hammer House of Horror behind in the second half with Steve Roake “buying” wickets at 50 a time, followed closely by Huw at 48. Only a few - including the Singing Cavalier, the Champion Hurdler and our Hon Sec - have yet to pass their sweater to the umpire at the bowler’s end: even Rabbit and Gog have been entrusted with the leather sphere!

Fielding: it has been difficult to compose this section as, sad to relate, we have not been very good at recording in our scorebook who took catches and were involved with run outs. While it is often the opposition keeping our book when we are in the field, there’s no reason why, at the end of the game, players can’t ensure these details are added – after all, it’s easier to do it while it’s fresh in the mind and saves Jez from having to text or email players to find out so he can update the scorebook. We can, though, report that JD has equalled the record for the most number of fielding catches in a game and that there have been several stunning catches by a wide variety of people – Swash, Jason, Joey, Caesar and Rhidian notable among them.

Looking ahead: assuming that the rain relents at some stage this summer, the next couple of weeks will see whether we can reach the Cup final and also whether we can do enough in our last couple of games to qualify for the Shield competition, which is played in the second half of the season. To cater for the larger squad of players, we have also arranged additional mid-week friendlies so that there are as many opportunities as possible for folk to play. We also have the tour to West Wales in just over a month, which is now sold out and features several new tourists.

We hope that everyone is enjoying the season and, as ever, if you have any comments, concerns or suggestions please do make them known to any of the committee.