Irby CC Logo Irby Cricket Club 3rd XI Match Reports Irby CC Logo

This page contains the match reports for all 3rd XI games.
If you wish to submit a match report then please send them by clicking here  - e-mail
Home Page    3rd XI Pages

 

vs Warrington

Warrington 102 all out (42 overs) – (Bate 36)  (Elston 3-32, Knowles 2-9, Leigh 2-29, Plevin 2-6) 

Irby 3rd – 104 for 6 (46 overs) – Crawford 50, Atkins 3-20 

Irby 3rd won by 4 wickets

As the hunt for promotion continued the 3rds hosted a Warrington team who were well beaten by us in the season’s opener. Nigel won the toss and decided to bowl 1st on what looked a very wet pitch. The Warrington batsman struggled from the off with tight bowling from both irby openers elston and Knowles who are reminiscent of past great opening partnerships of Walsh and Ambrose and Thompson and Lillie. Both openers were well backed up in the field with a special mention going to anoop he turned in an exceptional performance in the field. To be perfectly honest our fielders didn’t have to be weary of the quick single as one batsman looked to be celebrating his 130th birthday whilst the other looked to be celebrating the fact that tea time was nearing. In the end Warrington were 102 after 42 over’s. Special mention goes to mahee for another great keeping performance and his yelps of ‘’bowling lewie’’ from behind the stumps are starting to become reminiscent of the great shout of ‘’bowling warnie’’ from Adam gilchrist. Sounded easy enough with 48 over’s to get 103 surely there was no doubt of an irby victory. But of course we decided to do it the irby way and make every 1 sweat as we limped towards our victory target. Notable performances with the bat go to Roy for a very slow 50 odd. And of course we all know of his his stubborn boycott like running between the wickets. He decided to spare us the pain of watching him turn a 2 into a dot ball and asked anoop to run for him claiming an injury although very few team members were convinced and felt it was a way to avoid any possible activeness. Soon Roy got out leaving us 5 down needing 9 runs from 4 over’s. So come’th the hour come’th the man Lewis Knowles strides to the crease. He decided to tease the spectators with a few uncharacteristic defensive shots. He was in fact leading the fielders into a false sense of security which was soon to pay off as mid on and mid off were brought up and next ball he plants his size 13 boot half way down the wicket and tanks it back over the bowlers head for 6. Easy as you like. Thank you very much game over. Thank you and good night.

 

Irby 3rds vs Irby 4ths

Irby 3rd 173 for 7 (43 overs) – R.Crawford 69 Not out, P.Smith 23, M De Silve 22  - A.Cummings 3-27

Irby 4th 53 All out – R.Barber 18,  R.Elson 6-15

Irby 3rd won by 120 Runs

 

Irby 3rds vs Irby 4ths

Regrettably during Saturday’s 3’s Vs 4’s game there were a number of unsavoury incidents which have been referred to the CCCL Disciplinary Committee. As a result the following individuals face strong sanctions:

Offenders           Offences
Justin:           Serious charges of jug evasion, ignoring team mates (who suggested jug should still be bought), smiling whilst commenting “I wasn’t counting honest!” and generally Looking smug.
Mahee:               Failure to score his “usual” 80 or so runs, having the deepest voice in the team, and more seriously, a very poor impersonation of Bob behind the stumps.
Paul:                      Smiling when given out caught when the ball hit his pad (unbelievable – Paul is being  disciplined for NOT abusing umpire). The unforgiveable sin of getting Dave Noble out.
Roy:                       Taunting his son Tom when calling “two” for what was only a single, being unable to get up from the floor having taken second (surprising/shocking/amazing) catch.
Brian:                    Where do we start?? Fined for making the game look too easy, knowing all of the Rules (3’s and 4’s have their own Rules Brian– copy available in Clubhouse ), trying to have Roy run out by his son Tom, when fielding - moving to a place where the ball we being repeatedly hit in the air-we simply don’t do this in 3rd team cricket!
Ryan:                     Not eating a pie when on the pitch, not having chips in his pockets when on pitch, running quickly between the wickets (unheard of), backing up at non-strikers end.
Andy L                  Bowling well but without much luck, knowing far too much about Curries, trying to have an intelligent conversation with Eric.
Lewis:                   Ruining Dan’s day with a great ball that had no right to be bowled on that pitch, then claiming credit that he planned to do it, not being stumped, calling “yes” to take a single to the bowler, taking pictures with Dave V’s camera of unusual objects, being too quiet in the field..
Rich:                      Being too keen – bowling very well, taking wickets, tying batsmen down but still heard to complain “the ball doesn’t feel like it’s coming out quite right”. God help the batsmen when it does.                
Kyle:                      Fined for not taking 7 wickets, also seen doing very poor impersonation of Dave V when taking pictures during 3’s innings, didn’t lose temper when destroyed by Dave Noble and to compound this he didn’t throw a strop when removed from bowling attack – the lack of “strops” sees Kyle facing what could be very serious charges.
Nigel:                    Avoiding any potential conflict with his Son (particularly disappointing to the Committee), evasion of the opening spot for batting, listening to rather than ignoring his team mates, failure to remove Lewis from the attack after 1 over (max spell for an under 10 yr old), abuse to an OAP when executing his duty of keeping the scoreboard up to date
Complaints have also been made against the following but were deferred till the next meeting of the Disciplinary Committee.
 
Andy Jones:       Being too darned enthusiastic and constantly praising the efforts of his team mates – particularly the youngsters.
Dan Povall:         Bowling well but without much reward and catching Roy from a ball that most people had just assumed wasn’t coming down again.
Tom Crawford:  Bowling a short ball first up at his Dad, dropping Brian off a dolly, getting out to the slowest delivery in history from Paul, turning traitor on his team mates in the 3’s and  bowling well at them.
AND LAST BUT BY NO MEANS LEAST.......
Dave Noble:       Dave has asked for a personal appearance in front of the committee. We are not sure that this is wise – we suggest that he sends Jordan (as the person) instead of himself. Offences include..  excessive concentration when batting, taking time between deliveries to compose himself (during these delays,  Nige and Andy Leigh each passed a birthday, Tom and Dan Povall got their GCSE results  and there’s a rumour (unconfirmed) that Roy retired), hitting almost everything in the middle of the bat, praising his team mates both in the field and when batting, playing a great cover drive but then standing and watching it rather than running..
                                In mitigation he has also asked for the offence of “slide tackling a cricket ball whilst at square leg ” to be taken into account. The committee have asked Dave Venables for video evidence before ruling on this.

 

Irby 3rds VS Neston 4ths

With the chance of possibly going top of the league with victory there was no bigger incentive for the 3rds for the visit of Local rivals Neston. With our skipper being a top class tosser we were shocked to find that he had in-fact lost the toss and we were asked to bat on what looked like a wicket that would offer a little something for everyone. A decent opening partnership from mahee and Stu feeley got us off to a great start. The total clock continued to tick over with good contributions from Steve Venables and Roy Crawford as well as some good late order hitting from Andy Leigh Justin Overend and Lewis Knowles saw us reach 211 off the 45 over’s surely too many for the youngsters off Neston to chase down. A good start from opening bowlers Knowles and Elston ensured that the batsman were always under pressure and with both opening batsman back in the pavilion early on it seemed it was going to be easier than thought but like Kyle’s fashion sense we were horribly wrong and there number 3 batsman as well as the rest of the middle order stook around and put on some quick runs to make us sweat but some fine bowling from Kyle Vernon and ensured that they never made it to 3 figures and were all out for just short of 100. A great all round performance from the team in which we batted bowled and fielded exceptionally well. Special mention goes to Neston who were very sporting and an extra special mention to the Neston senior player embarking on his 127th season nearly beating the record currently being set by our very own Andy Hurworth. 3rds VS 4ths next week always sure to be eventful.

 

Irby 3rds vs. oxton 4ths

After the 1st 3 games which Irby won comfortably we knew we were in for a proper game on Saturday against oxton and we couldn’t have been more right. Not even a fine keeping performance from bob barber was enough to stop the Oxton batsman booking in for bed and breakfast on that pitch.  Despite the best efforts of all the bowlers in what were difficult conditions to bowl in we couldn’t stop the oxton batsman filling there boots and scoring a staggering 274 in 45 over’s which included a fine hundred from the opener who was dropped on a couple of occasions early on in the innings but I wont mention names the culprits know who they are. You can’t really appreciate what a hard shift in the field it was until you witness the redness of Steve’s face with comments of baboons back side and tellytubby being yelped across the field from certain members of the team. Special mention again goes to Mr Barber’s wicket keeping as we spread onto a second page in the byes column of the scorebook. It was later predicted that of the 274 scored by oxton 272 of them were byes. 274 was always going to be a difficult total to get and despite good knocks from Roy and baboon boy Venables it proved to many as the overs ran away with irby 155-3 and earning a much deserved draw after our efforts. A special mention goes to Eric for a fine scoring performance as constant encouragement from the scouse old timer kept our spirits high and kept us going throughout the game. Roll on brooklands - Lewis Knowles

Match Drawn

Oxton 276-3  (C.Morris 107 not out)

Irby 3rd – 151-3  (R.Crawford 51, S.Venables 35 not out)

Oxton 14 points, Irby 3rd 7 points

Vs. Birkenhead Park

 

Birkenhead Park IV – 39 all out  (K. Vernon 4 for 13) 

Irby 3rd – 40 for 5  (A.Hurworth 12. J.Burton 10)

Irby 3rd 20 points, Birkenhead Park IV 3

April 19th vs. Warrington 4ths (a)

The 3rd XI got off to a winning start in the opening fixture away at a cold and overcast Warrington in what was a repeat of the opening fixture last season. We won the toss and didn’t hesitate in putting the opposition into bat on a green wicket. 9-man Warrington made a solid start and reached 57-2 before Andy Leigh broke their resistance and took two wickets in an over on his way to recording figures of 4-17 including a brilliant diving caught and bowled. Lewis Knowles and Richard Elston both bowled well and contributed two wickets each with Warrington eventually bowled out for 86. Everyone worked hard in the field but welcomed the opportunity to take tea early and get warm.

The chase began and a promising start was made until Barber was caught for 10 off a high full toss with the score at 26. Crawford senior then joined Burrows senior in the middle and they contributed a 50 partnership. Burrows was out for 27 with the score on 82 but Roy Crawford saw the side through to an 8-wicket victory with an unbeaten 26. Irby III 20 points, Warrington IV 2 points.

April 26th vs. Chester BH

The 3rd’s continue their winning start against a youthful Chester BH Team.

After losing the toss, Mahee and Roy added 146 for the first wicket and set the platform for a declaration at 45 overs with the score on 178-6. Both batsmen passed 50 – Mahee scoring an excellent 72 and Roy 59.
Wickets were sacrificed at the end of the innings as we chased bonus points, and special mention to Lewis who wasn’t unnerved at going in on a hat trick ball – his attempt to hit the ball to Rhyl narrowly failing and he was given out stumped soon after taking a single to short mid wicket.
Lewis (1-13)and Richard (2-15) opened the bowling and bowled a good line and length – Lewis bowling the opener with a peach of a delivery. Steve Venables (1-9) and Andy Leigh (3-13) then took over and they both bowled excellently  - Andy taking 3 quick wickets and Steve regularly beating the bat but without success.
Kyle (3-22) was then introduced and proceeded to bowl a great spell – giving the ball plenty of air, showing good control  and turning it. Wickets continued to fall and CBH’s No 11 (who should probably bat at 4) came out to bat with around 8 overs left.
 Things became very tense and with 4 overs left the hardworking Steve Venables induced a drive from the No 11 and the faintest of edges was taken by James. To his credit the No 11 “walked” and didn’t wait for the umpire.
All round this was a great team effort. Wickets were taken when they had to be and everyone stuck together and played as a team. Next week it’s Birkenhead Park at home but for now we are happy with the 25 points from this game.
Final mention goes to the sportsmanship shown by 2 of the CBH team who “walked” on the thinnest of edges – all too rare these days – especially when you consider that the 2nd “walk” was the end of the game and victory for Irby.