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THE WAIT CONTINUES
View From Silly Point by Jamie (Mitch) Mitchell
On Victorious Festival weekend, the headline acts were Nicky Wyatt, James Christian, and Henry Woolfe, as Pompey 2s finished the season with the St Helens crowd wanting more with an 85-run win over Old Basing.
After winning the flip, Wyatt opted to bat first, to make their promotion-chasing visitors earn the 5 bonus points required to bid bon voyage to Hampshire League Division 2. This led to some audible angst among the Old Basing side, as the home side’s openers, Wyatt and Jamie Mitchell, piled on 140+ for the first wicket. The contrast between Pompey’s 1 & 2 couldn’t have been more stark – while Wyatt’s scoring rate was on a fast track with a gale force tail wind, Mitchell’s was in a pool of treacle – by the time Mitchell was run out (barbequed/rissoled/sold a dummy, call it what you will) for 43, Wyatt had raced into the 80s.
The Wyatt Riot continued on into three figures, before being caught in the deep for 105. Wickets then started to fall at regular intervals, with James Christian being the only exception, falling frustratingly short of a ton of his own – as his unbeaten 93 propelled Pompey to post 299 for 9, their highest score of the season.
Old Basing sat down to tea, knowing that they just needed just 1 batting bonus point to secure promotion, but a combination of good early bowling (Ishy Ahmad 2 for 41 & Ethan Randall 2 for 39), edgy batting, and one screamer of a catch from Tom Wallis, made for squeaky bums among the visiting contingent. Four wickets were lost before Old Basing scaled the summit of 75 runs, to notch up their batting bonus point. Such a hefty number of overs were taken to get there, that accumulating the additional 225 runs needed to win the game were as fanciful as Paul Hungerford losing the ‘PT’ moniker.
The remainder of the game had something of a Sunday Friendly feel, with it becoming a Hot Chocolate game (Everyone’s A Winner), as lusty blows were intertwined with dropped catches, and comedic attempts at fielding by the likes of an increasingly geriatric Mitchell and a hobbling Wyatt – if either were racehorses, they’d be glue by now. Youngster Henry Woolfe provided a rousing denouement to the season by taking the last three Old Basing wickets in successive deliveries (his hat trick may or may not have been ably assisted by Micky H’s umpiring), to finish the summer with figures of 5 for 24.
A supremely balanced season ended with Pompey 2s halfway up the the league (9th out of 18), with 8 wins and 8 losses (1 washout). The socialising that following was everything but well-balanced.
We’d like to thank everyone who has supported the lads throughout what at times has felt like a long summer, and we hope to see you all at St Helens this Saturday, to cheer on the 1s.
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