2020 A SEASON LIKE NO OTHER!
With the Covid lockdown delaying the start of the season until the middle of
July, the usual divisional league system was replaced by a seven week qualifying
period followed by a straight knock-out to determine the champions of each
division.
The games were shorter in length with earlier start times (to allow for hand
sanitation breaks every 6 overs), and the use of changing rooms and the
traditional "cricket tea" were scrapped in favour of a "bring your own" variety.
Consequently, all three of our teams qualified for the knockout stages with our
Second Eleven proving most successful - winning seven games to reach the final
of division three where they were unfortunate to lose to Northampton Saints.
Our First team won six of their encounters and the Thirds came out on top in
three games.
Matthew Jones topped the First team batting with 220 runs (passing 10,000 runs
for Wollaston First team), Mark Ralph notched 154 for the Seconds and Craig
Boddington was not far behind with 139 runs for the Thirds. Matthew and Mark
both scored centuries.
Chris Perry took 19 First team wickets, Steve Musgrave 27 for the Seconds and
Adrian Ward 14 for the Thirds.
Marcus Shelton has now passed 5000 runs for the Seconds including a record
thirty five fifties, Chris Perry has taken a First Team "sixfer" eleven times
and Paul Jones has reached 16,681 runs spread across the three teams. (for all
the records click here)
Hopefully things will be able to revert to a more normal scenario in 2021, but
no doubt some of the changes may be adopted permanently if it means that
cricket can go ahead in the future. Fingers crossed!
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