Halstead 2nd X1
Report for Season 2009
The most pleasing element of my two seasons as Captain the Halstead 2ND X1 season was the appearance of new players making their debuts at this level - some from within the club itself making their way up from the Colts section like Will Clark, Steve Tucker, Josh Wells, Andy Charlton and Goushi Raviendron - and some joining from outside, like Sam Burrett, David Philp and Ian Pont.
Results improved dramatically this season winning 13 and losing 7, as opposed to winning 5 and losing 11 the previous season. But it could have been much better. On 20th June as rain washed out our run chase against bottom of the table Boxted, we were lying second in the league with 7 victories and only one defeat – thereafter in the second half of the season we won a further 6 matches but lost 6 too. Whereas our batting and bowling were consistently good our fielding was consistently poor, even dire on some occasions, and this was the major contributory factor to us losing our high table position and slipping down the table.
Availability, although not as big a problem as the previous season, remained inconsistent and strangely it was the older members of the team who were more reliable, with a small core of older players making themselves available for most matches and thus allowing a degree of continuity in the side, but seldom did a week go by without players being promoted late in the day from the 3RD X1, and I would like to thank publically Richard Hume for his unstinting efforts for the club, in finding players at the eleventh hour to turn out and play and ensuring we rarely resort to cancelling fixtures and incurring fines.
The highlights of the season were the two victories over Copford, one involving a 4th wicket partnership of exactly 100 between David Rawlinson & Goushi Raviendron , a 3rd wicket partnership of 114 between Josh Wells and Andy Rose against Ipswich & East Suffolk. In batting pride of place is shared by our two centurions – Simon Steel against Tuddenham and Ian Pont against Copdock & O.Is, and in bowling Simon Steel took most wickets, (31) and Justin Rose produced the best bowling performance taking 6-43 against Ipswich & East Suffolk. .
I regret that owing to increased work commitments that I am standing down as captain but I am delighted that Paul Cooper and Simon Steel will be taking the team forward next season.