An Unoffical Tour
Touring party:
Frogs: T Marshall, Pascal, Chalk, Allen, Grey, Slabbert, C Lawton, D Ellis, J Ellis, Trivedi, Wright, C Carson, M Williams, R Lawrence
Tour entourage: Prain, C Quinn (Scorer).
Match results: WD
Day 1
Frogs 191-7 off 40 - Slabbert 78
East Woodhay 182 ao. Marshall 3-24, Ellis 3-21.
Frogs win by 10 runs.
The Frogs began their unofficial tour at the haven that is East Woodhay CC. Stand in skipper for the day, T Marshall, did the sensible thing when winning the toss, and batted. The Frogs assembled outside the unoccupied pavilion, due to COVID reasons, and padded up in the open. Pascal, fresh off his runs at Horsham the previous weekend, strode out to bat with C Lawton. It was mentioned by the senior Marshall that it is rightfully becoming regular occurrence that one of the Lawton brothers opens the innings. The innings started steadily with Pascal guiding EWCC’s opening bowler through the slips, and Lawton powering him through the covers for 4 within his first two overs. The first wicket fell with the score 14, Pascal playing onto his stumps. Lawton shortly followed edging to the cordon. This brought Slabbert and Skipper Marshall to the crease. Slabbert played some lusty blows in his innings of 78 (101 balls), with Marshall, Chalk and Grey all passing go during his stay at the crease. Slabbert was eventually bowled by a young off spinner, which brought Wright to the crease, fresh off a league 47 the day before. Jono stroked the ball over mid-off several times during his 27, before eventually being caught at long off during the final over of the innings. Trivedi (12*) and young J Ellis (1*) shepherded the Frogs to a respectable 191-7 off their 40 overs.
What was to follow in the second innings was nothing short of spectacular. The frogs were made to work hard for their first wicket, with tight new ball spells from Trivedi and Wright, followed by the off spin of Allen and leggies of Slabbert. The first wicket came with the score 109, from a reluctant LBW decision given by umpire A Marshall off the bowling of Slabbert. With the other opening batsman racing towards a hundred, Pascal managed to produce a piece of fielding excellence at backward point off the returning Trivedi to dismiss EWCC’s number 3. This was a rare gem during a fielding innings littered with drop catches and overthrows from the Frogs. The skipper then introduced 13-year old Ellis to the game, bowling left arm seam. This was to be a risk that paid off almost immediately, with the opening batsman who was 98* at the time pulling the ball to Allen at mid-wicket who produced a game changing moment. Unfortunately this moment didn’t involve him catching the batsman out, but dropping the ball and then, in anger, throwing the ball to the keepers end only for it to fly past D Ellis, and Pascal who was backing up, to go for 2 valuable overthrows. This brought up the batsman’s century, following which he decided to retire out. At this point EWCC only required 21 runs to win, in just over 10 overs. The Frogs proceeded to take the next 7 wickets for just 10 runs, with young Ellis and skipper Marshall clean bowling 3 batsmen each, and Lawton/Slabbert running out the other. The overs as recorded in the score book went as follow:
Marshall ..1.w
Ellis .w..w4
Marshall w..2..
Ellis ....1.
Marshall .1.1w.
Ellis w
The Frogs, as you’d expect, walked off the pitch with immense pride and satisfaction with their efforts, nobody prouder than Skipper Marshall who had won his first match captaining the Frogs on tour.
The Frogs would like to thank East Woodhay CC for their hospitality throughout the day and we look forward to our meeting next season.
Frogs XI - T Marshall, Pascal, Chalk, Allen, Grey, Slabbert, C Lawton, D Ellis, J Ellis, Trivedi, Wright.
The Frogs, as usual, descended onto the Andover high street for their usual festivities. Elgar was awarded to Tom Allen for a host of reasons. Firstly, with much excitement, GT announced to the Frogs Tour WhatsApp group during the prior week that he had managed to get an excellent price to stay the night at Andover's Star and Garter hotel. A price that was £30 cheaper than what anyone else in the tour party had managed to get, to everyone’s bemusement. It was only a couple of hours later that he realised that he had booked the hotel for the 27th September instead of the 30th August, much to everyone in the Frogs Tour WhatsApp group's amusement. Furthermore, GT, during Sunday's match, did drop a certain batsman whilst on 98, and gifted him his century by throwing 2 overthrows past Duncan. It could be seen that Geets' actions actually aided a Frogs victory in the end. However, the comedy value could not be ignored. So, Elgar was awarded to him.
A curry at 'The Chillies' was followed by some hydration at the Wetherspoon’s, and an annual trip up to Andover's premier night club for a socially distant 'night out'. The Frogs youth arrived at Wetherspoon’s on Monday morning with some dusty heads.
Day 2
Wiltshire Queries 206-6 declared.
Frogs 205-9.
Match Drawn.
The Frogs arrived at Tidworth on a dry sunny afternoon and were met with a typically soft wicket given the previous week’s weather. A rare sight for a Frogs match was witnessed on the outfield prior to play with young Ellis being put through a vigorous warm up, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Marshall/Shenkman “bootcamp” of 2018. Carson started the day well by negotiating a declaration game, although failed to secure an invitation to bat. Frogs lost the toss and were put in the field, much to the disappointment of those nursing a sore head / sugar rush come down from the previous night’s socialising (in line with government guidelines).
Trev and Poshy took the new ball and formed a miserly opening partnership, with Poshy (7-2-15-0) unlucky that a couple of chances didn’t go to hand in the cordon. With the Frogs playing with 12 men, Rich kindly offered to sit off for the first 6, then 8, then 10, then 12 overs before finally joining in with the Queries reaching 30-0 off 12 overs. Having been all over the more senior opening bat without just reward, Trev continued to search for his deserved wicket but arguably bowled 1 over too many (blame the captain) as Shaw, of Ealing CC started to find his groove. At this point Jack and GT joined the attack with the latter pinning the opener in front, for a steady 15 off 67. Jack bowled well and showed his potential to challenge Jono for the role of “left arm up the hill and into the wind” in years to come.
At the other end GT continued to twirl away and was joined by spin twin Slabbert from the other end. Slabs’ leggies gained high praise from the opening bat for the amount of turn generated, though he was less respectful of GT’s bowling – telling his batting partner “he doesn’t turn it”. Unphased and taking this comment in his stride, GT plugged away and took the first 3 wickets of the innings, finishing with a very respectable 3-43 from his 11 overs. At 134-3 off 34, the Frogs looked like restricting the Queries to a below par total. Shaw however (who went on to finish with 133 out of the 186 runs scored off the bat) had other ideas and took the attack to the bowlers as Trev and Kieran came on to close the innings out. Trev would have felt unlucky with the support offered in the field as the batsman skied a number of deliveries only for the fielders to play statues, including one that received Chalky’s best impression of “is it a bird? is it a plane?” Needless to say, Trev got the last laugh (and sought-after wicket) dismissing Shaw after one attempted ramp too many, the Queries declaring on 206-6 off 42 and giving the Frogs 41 overs to chase it.
In reply, Pascal and Lawrence opened the batting positively reaching 28-0 off 6. However at this point (the sanitising break) Pascal came running off the pitch to much confusion from the Frogs, before retrieving his box from the car! Unfortunately this did not help Pascal who departed soon after for 11 with Carson joining Lawrence at the crease. Having ventured south in the hope of finding a batter friendly wicket, Carson looked to up the scoring rather than graft on a slow pitch and scored 20 of the next 26 runs. However this year his previously successful approach of playing walking cricket to Ninian’s lob bowling proved to be his downfall, walking past a leg side full toss and being stumped.
Kieran quickly came and went soon after, unlucky to be adjudged LBW off the thigh pad. This brought Slabbert to the crease who continued where he left off from the day before. Together with Lawrence the Frogs built risk free (with Slabs keeping his one-handed sweep in the locker) putting on 120 in 21 overs to take the score to 179-3 in the 36th over, both passing 50. Slabs departed for a well-made 67 after failing to clear mid-off with the frogs needing another 25. The next over the key Queries bowler (who by this point had increased to a 7 or 8 on the ‘Marshall-ometer’ of speed) yorked Lawrence for a superb 70 and trapped Poshy LBW shortly after with a similar delivery.
Williams, having negotiated himself the finisher role at number 8, then strode to the crease needing 19 off 16 balls. After launching the opening bowler for 6 two balls later the decision soon looked to have paid off when some smart cricket from Chalk and Williams left 5 needed off 8 balls. However, Williams then fell LBW to the spinner after coming 2 yards down the track and inside edging it being ABSOLUTELY PLUMB. With 5 required off 7 Trev received the filthiest of leg-side long hops first ball but could only find deep square on the full, leaving Chalky and Jack to score 5 off the final over. A single from Jack and no-ball later left 3 required off 4. Chalky then played the experienced role, taking a single to leave Jack to search for glory! After 2 more excellent yorkers Jack attempted to shuffle across and flick the final ball to fine leg for 4 but missed out “by the barest of margins” and was bowled, leaving the Frogs agonisingly short on 205-9 and settling for a draw.
The non-cricketing highlight of the day was the sighting of a zebra in the nearby field during the 1st innings, which Williams kindly brought to the attention of Pascal. However after a few overs Pascal realised upon much closer inspection that it was in fact a horse wearing a striped fleece rug! Despite GT’s best efforts later in the day for an Elgar nomination with his claim that “a zebra never changes it stripes”, Elgar was duly awarded to Thierry for the earlier zebra incident and batting without a box.
Frogs: C. Carson*, T. Pascal, R. Lawrence, K. Gray, S. Slabbert, C. Lawton, R. Chalk, M. Williams, N. Trivedi, J. Ellis, T. Allen, D. Ellis†, T. Marshall (13th).