Friendlies Review  - by skipper Dave Hurrell

The 2009 season for friendly matches was once again a full and diverse one with 18 games played and after 9 years my last as captain, interestingly there were only 2 games back in 2001.
There were as usual many high and lowlights during the year most of them centred around the undoubted player of the year Francoise Joseph Charton or "The Pieman" as he is better known. His bowling was a mix of pies and wickets sometimes in the same over, highlights being 3 wickets against Phoenix and his famous moon ball getting a victim at Highcliffe (a delivery only beaten in height by Stan the man Wooldridge's legendary hand grenade lob), on the down side a succession of tasty morsels were dispatched all over Wherwell's picturesque ground. His batting included plenty of good knocks but most remembered are his reluctance to pad up in the final few overs at Wimborne resulting in a declaration when a wicket fell, and a retired hurt at Fawley (looking after his average?) and not getting the attention of the umpires in a desperate effort to get back in after number 11 Steve Hannibal was clean bowled with 2 runs needed for victory, Dave Marshall incidentally being left 49 not out.

Noted performances elsewhere include 50's from Jack Baughan (twice) a first one for Pete Bennet who later got a League 50 as well. Terry Steadman made a brief return and got 50 against Hinton Admiral and next year's skipper Steve How and Alex Hall put on 128 for the first wicket versus Eltham both retiring not out. The top batting performance though was an unbeaten 100 by Ross Clark at Wimborne's famous old Hanhams ground.

Best bowling had to be Sam Harvey who took 5-9 at Wherwell which included a hat trick all clean bowled every one hitting a different stump and this after he split his whites wide open in the pre-match warm up. Mind you Sam's pre-match warm up is quite gentle the incident with his trousers occurring during a stretch for Hannys lighter, more notable were his efforts in not buying a jug in the hostelries visited on the way back. With all this seam bowling around the game at Clayhill is worth a mention because after 2 early wickets from Big Sam the other 8 were taken by the pleasing, guileful and sophisticated spin bowling of Will Baughan, Dave Hurrell and Steve How.

The Carnival Cup was unfortunately lost against Sandford in a closely fought match, but hopes are high for a successful rematch in 2010. Finally many future star players have had their first game in friendly matches and 2009 included such luminaries as Matt Riley, Nilantha Atapattu and Lisa Downer.