Save the date - Inter-hunt Cricket Match - Sunday 3rd September 2023
Last year's match report
The inter-hunt cricket was a massive success, thank you to Charlie Smith for organising and heading up an excellent team! Please see report from Charlie below;
The VWH won an astonishing game of cricket against the Beaufort last Sunday. Batting first, the VWH made 150 for 9 off their 22 overs. It was a decent total and had looked a very long way off at 60 odd for 6, but sensible batting in the late middle overs got us back into it. 22 chaotic overs later, almost incredibly, the Beaufort ended their innings on the exact same score. They had looked dead in the water at one stage, but a very brisk 26 from their Australian all-rounder and an excellent last-wicket partnership against the best of the VWH bowling dragged them to parity. Luckily for the VWH, the umpires were rather generous on wides when we were bowling, but we made up for our occasional waywardness with some magnificent catching, not least an unbelievable one-handed effort from Anthony Axel-Berg at point. His catch was perhaps the single most decisive moment of the match.
Since the main game had ended in a tie, things had to be decided by ’super over’. Batting first, the Beaufort lost their Australian star for nought, caught behind trying to hit the first ball into an adjacent field. For the remaining five balls, Tom Beechey bowled briskly and the team fielded well, restricting the Beaufort to nine. The Beaufort’s over was bowled skilfully and sportingly by their same Australian all-rounder. And the task of getting the ten runs we needed for victory fell to Charlie Robinson, who had earlier kept wicket brilliantly, and Kyle Clements-Bruce, fresh off an 18-hour flight from the Falklands. Everyone around the ground was feeling the tension, but Charlie and Kyle knocked the runs off nervelessly. Things turned decisively our way, for the very last time in a match which had see-sawed back and forth, when Kyle hit fourth ball just a few feet over the fielder on the mid wicket boundary for six.
It was one of the closest and most exciting games of cricket I have ever been involved in and a terrific team performance from the VWH. Everyone contributed something important, whether a wicket, a catch or vital runs, and with luck all of them will be available to defend the trophy next year. Huge thanks to Simon Graley for organising, to the umpires and to our opponents for the way they played, and above all to James and Bec Gay, who allowed us to hold the match on their glorious private ground at Lordswood.