Posted by Tony Hutton
Sunday 16th May - Minor Counties day
Day two of our tour brought a distinct change in the weather after yesterday's scorcher. Target for today was two Minor Counties knock out games, within twenty miles of each other. After overnight rain, we drove first to Henley-on-Thames famous for rowing, where work had already started in erecting the marquees for the regatta later in the summer. The town itself is in Oxfordshire, but walk across the bridge over the river and you are in Berkshire and it is only a short distance over the bridge to the town's cricket club where today Berkshire were hosting Lincolnshire.
To every one's surprise play started on time at 11 a.m. and Lincolnshire's top five batsmen, all with first class experience, made hay in the cloudy conditions. Star man was Dan Birch, previously with Derbyshire, who always believes in scoring runs with boundaries. He got off to a slow start and opening partner Andrew Crook, formerly with Lancashire and Northants, was first man out for 22 followed soon afterwards by Maryn Dobson for 15.
When Matt Dowman, the Lincolnshire captain, formerly with both Notts and Derby, joined Birch the fireworks really started. Birch proceeded to hit the bowlers to all parts of the ground, despite a brief rain interruption and was finally out for 92, which included eight fours and five sixes. Dowman went on to make 75 and the visitors looked certain to win with a total of 306-8. However the weather had the final say and Berkshire's replay was curtailed to 23-1 off only 4-5 overs, not enough to get a result and the game was abandoned.
By this time we had already left to return to Radley College just south of Oxford to see the second innings of Oxfordshire v Herefordshire. Rain was already in the air again when we arrived at the attractive College ground, which has no less than six cricket squares in its extensive grounds. Famous former pupils include Ted Dexter, Andrew Strauss and Ben Hutton.
This morning Hereford had batted first but had been dismissed for only 138 in difficult conditions. They were briefly back in the match when they reduced Oxford to 29-3, but with rain threatening again their number four batsman, Kaufman, quickly hit three fours to make a crucial 20 not out. With the minimum number of overs bowled to obtain a result when the rains came Oxford were ahead on scoring rate having made 57-3 in 14.4 overs. So when it became apparent that no more play was possible they were declared the winners on faster scoring rate.
One rather curious feature when we first arrived - all the other five grounds had stumps in and some had scoreboards which suggested other games were going on. On asking one of the groundsmen if any other games were on today, I was told they were all left over from yesterday and they had not had time to take the equipment in and would not have until Monday morning. So no bonus games today.
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