Hawkey goes aerial as Tollbar ease through

June 12th, 2008

Last night Tollbar’s year 7 team travelled to Lincoln to take on Priory LSST in the second round of the County Cup giving debuts to Liam Harries and “Disco Dan” Cook. Skipper Jack Gibson won the toss, and as is his custom, elected to bat. On a slow and low pitch Tollbar progressed steadily against some accurate seam bowling until an increasingly frustrated Gibson lost his middle pole whilst trying an agricultural hoic. This brought another touch player to the crease in Waiton. He also found it difficult to score with the ball not “coming on” to the bat and tried in vain to unfurl his full repertoire of strokes. George Hawkey was having no such problems. Standing tall with a Gooch like high back lift, he cuts an intimidating figure at the crease. Any delivery that was in his arc was promptly despatched to the boundary with crisp and clean efficiency. This was not slogging, but a display of confident stroke making as he smote five boundaries in the space of a few Overs. The last of these, which whistled over deep midwicket, landed inches away from a maximum and took The Hawk to 25 upon which he had to retire.  

Nobody else in the Tollbar ranks was able to score freely as the familiar middle order collapse set in. Five Tollbar batsmen registered ducks as poor shot selection and slapstick running threatened to ruin a good start. Tollbar’s innings closed on a disappointing 54 for 9. A testament to Hawkey’s contribution was the fact that the next highest score was 3 and Tollbar were grateful to the extras column. For Priory Christopher bowled well to take 3-12 and was well supported by Divver 2-3. 

“Do the basics right, work hard and we can win this,” was the message of Captain Gibson. His first over posed few problems for the Priory openers as they knocked the ball about with ease. Enter Liam Harries playing his first game of cricket without plastic equipment. Taking the ball he charged in and delivered a head high beamer which screamed past the batsmen’s nose. In international cricket this kind of delivery causes histrionics, outrage and posturing. Christopher the diminutive but admirable Priory opener adjusted his visor, coolly stated “I am not that tall mate,” and retook his guard. The next few deliveries were sprayed well wide of the batsmen with Priory profiting from the extra runs. Other tall seam bowlers with more experience may have lost their nerve at this point and gone to pieces, Steve Harmison springs to mind, but Harries is made of sterner stuff. After having a quiet word with himself he began to find a perfect channel of uncertainty outside off stump in which to pitch his quick away swingers. 

There followed an excellent passage of bowling which strangled the Priory run chase. Gibson was a metronome of consistency and the Priory batsmen just couldn’t get him away. At the other end Harries regularly beat the bat with unplayable deliveries. There is a touch of Michael Vaughan about Gibson. When a couple of chances went down off his bowling other Captains may have berated and harangued their fielders. He simply adopted a wry smile and urged his men to greater efforts. He also demonstrated the uncompromising side to his character when a fielding position was questioned. The complainant was swiftly informed “You will do as you are told!”  

The first Priory wicket did fall when Christopher responded to a bad call from his partner attempting a sharp single. Dyson, misfiring with the bat but still deadly in the field, swooped to underarm the ball into Hawkey with the batsmen short of his ground.  Du was the next to depart as he chased a Gibson leg cutter and proceeded to nick the ball to Harries at slip. He lunged forward to pouch a blinding catch. Shortly after another priory batsmen failed to ground his bat as he attempted a single to midwicket. After 8 overs and with the half way point reached Priory had yet to reach 20. Gibson had bowled superbly bowling 4 overs 1-4. Harries was nearly as miserly only conceding 8 from his spell.  

Priory decided to target the change bowlers but to no avail. Joel Gibbs bowled tidily although he was too wide for his own liking and Hawkey’s leg breaks were far too good for Priory to accelerate. Despite beseeching cries of “slog it” from the home ranks the outside edge was regularly beaten as Tollbar contained the scoring. First round hero George “Iceman” Waiton was introduced to the attack and he proved equally effective. At the end of the 16 overs Priory closed on 39-3 and Tollbar had won by 15 runs. Pearce who had looked the best of the Priory batsmen sportingly informed the Tollbar boys that it had been a pleasure sharing a pitch with them, a sentiment echoed by our lads. 

Well done boys and good luck in the next round. 

Thanks must go to Dan Coulling for sorting out much of the paperwork, John Hampson for driving the team to the fixture and Mr.Riden for arranging the minibus.

Mr.Briggs and Mr.Watson