Aussies(ish) rampage in rain addled run fest

Bradman Foundation 290-1; Toby Pullan 103 ret, Chris Weller 101 ret; A.Cantrell 1-42
Sussex Martlets 228-8; M.Trubshaw 62, P.Savage 59*, B Parsons 2-26

That we played at all was pretty miraculous and were it not for the perpetual motion of the Horsham groundsman and his tractor we probably wouldn’t have done. A late start and at least 3 rain breaks saw the game shortened to 25 overs after an hour or so.

That made no difference to the Bradmans who had been larruping it all over Horsham from ball one.

If you had to pick the one moment in which the game was lost it would have been in a bar somewhere the night before when the Aussie skipper plied Toby Pullen with booze and convinced him that it would be in his best interests to turn out for them.

So it was that the non-Australian very much not over 40 Martlet set about putting us to the sword. Even with his failure to put Trubby over the rope despite much goading it was pretty painful stuff. At least 2 went over the clubhouse and one half way to Sainsburys. Weller the other centurion was at least Australian if about 26 and playing for some elite Grade side in Sydney. Hey ho.

Two of our bowlers went for 63, one off 5 overs and one off 4! Names withheld.

Trubby (62) and Matt Shuttlewood (39) on debut gave it a good go as the sun came out after tea with MOM Trubby attempting almost without exception to hit every ball for 6. Valiant effort from Dave Messenger (20) and somehow the MM managed to scrape 59 largely through Weller positioning an Australian dad’s army at point, cover and third man. Corporal Jones and Private Godfrey managed to boot a few over the line for me or just got hit, one rather substantially on the kneecap.

517 runs off 50 overs in day was quite something and a game played in good spirit despite the fact that we were never really in it.

Phil Savage

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