Captains Day 2001  Glaxo Sept 9th Another Fabulous day for the team:   Report:

By El Director.  As a wave of democracy has swept the team and we now have a Committee, yours truly will have to try to get elected as Director next year I suppose, so this is my penultimate missive as non elected despot (some say patriarch others say Benito someone..)

The day dawned rather sunny (although it got a little chilly later) and kicked off with a committee meeting chez moi, where various ingrates sought to depose the once mighty ruler of the team (That King of Nepal seems to have had it taped if you ask me).  Anyhow after cafe latte and pain au choclat we moved to Glaxo where most of our members actually turned up on time, plus a couple of ringers and there we were 22 fighting fit young men in white.  We duly gave out the prizes etc (see here for full details) and the game commenced with Cap'n Shaw losing the toss to Cap'n Clarkster and going into bat.

The Shaw XI got of to a pretty fast start with Matt and Robert OE, and when Irwin came in at 3, who could have prophesied that he would hit a cracking 31 before getting bowled.  That's three times as many runs as he has scored all season. A fabulous performance.  Then Jeremy Hogben strode, like a colossus, to the crease and whacked off a rapid fire 67 before retiring.  Cap'n Ben was c and b by the Honorable Administrator in Chief , Mr. Henig, for a miserable 10, before Fletch completed his round of ducks of the season, was caught behind by the Lurpak award winner, Mr. Spillane.  Oh the irony of it.  However ringer Phil then bravely stepped up and whacked of an unbeaten 51 before we broke for tea at 207! Truly the Clarkster bowlers labored mightily to not much reward, Mr. Bush, clearly hung over and in some pain got not a lot of wickets and indeed Andy Foster had the best figures.

But it looked doable, if only just.  Buoyed by wining the raffle Mr. Henig and Mr. Spillane opened the innings and Mr. H was duly out for a duck, in time honored Salix fashion, but New Dom accelerated away to fast 51 and retired, ably supported by Alex and the Clarkster (also 50 and retired).  By about 25 Overs it looked like they were in for an outside shot at winning, however they still needed 7 an over.  However step forward El Director who got 4 wickets in 3 Overs and also ran Old Dominic out (great throw from Ben) and it was curtains for the Vice Captain and his merry men.

Sadly, the long term convention is that the stats  for this game do not count in the years figures, which is a shame really as we had:

• 4 x 50's - all of whom retired unbeaten (Jem, New Dom, Clarkster, Ringer Phil)
• Fletch getting a career best  4 for 35
• New Dom (Lurpak award winner two years running holding not one but two catches)
• an a magnificent innings from the Zimbabwean Love Machine himself

But there's always next year.

At Captains Day we ritually congratulate ourselves and award trophies etc for turning up and having your own  whites. 

The Team	Capn Ben, Fiona and Herr Director (not in that order)	Paul phones in from Barcelona	Mike Ellis	Matt Swindells
Chris K	Mr J. bowler extraordinaire	Dominic "Lurpak" Spillane	and his new hat	Ben Sarif. Player of the Year 2021
	I
Player of the Year, Andy Bush	Davina	Pippa	Victoria	Mrs J
Prue films the event	Hungover people score

This years winners were as follows: 

Captains Report

2001 has been another thoroughly enjoyable season that was kicked off with a great tour to Spain.  It looks like the international tour is going to become a welcome feature of future seasons.  The Club continues to thrive with a host of new players joining this season and a growing band of regulars, this is important for the future success of Salix.  

Success on the field proved to be a little more elusive this season (played 16 won 5 lost 9 drawn 1) however, there were some memorable games.  We three times scored around 250 runs in an innings, including that thrilling game against Freewheelers where we were chasing 250 to win.  Batting highlights include Paul Rogers scoring the most runs, Alex Newton for getting the highest score in an innings, Dominic Spillane for his 68 against Freewheelers and Andy Bush for getting so many NOT OUTS.  There have also been some impressive bowling performances.  Of note Andy Bush’s 2 for 8 against the Mighty Wanderers and Fletch’s 3 for 12 against the Presidents.  Other bowling highlights include Steve Jacobs’ haul of wickets and Mike Ellis’s strike rate.  Sadly our fielding has really let us down this year, how much better would the figures of our bowlers have been and how many more matches would we have won, if we had held more of our catches?  The dropped catch league speaks for itself!

I hope 2002 will be as much fun as 2001 and it promises to get off to a great start with the tour to Bordeaux.  Let us hope we hold more of our catches and win a few more games.

Bowling (only players from 4 games or more)

Our bowling was certainly better this year. There are many measures of bowling performance, however Rob Bailey stood out on all counts although in fairness he only bowled a limited number of Overs.  

Of the mainstream team, Steve had by the far the largest haul of wickets (25), ahead of  Fletch (16) and Andy (15) with no one else in double figures. Other outstanding performances were maidens (Andy),  strike rate (Dominic Guinness), meanness (Andy and Steve) and average per wicket (Steve and Mike Ellis).  Clarkster and Chris K got knocked about a bit this year, but hey, who's counting

Batting (three innings or more only shown, exc Captains Day)

A slightly ragged performance this year - we scored 1907 runs off the bat compared with 1950 last year. Overall Paul Rogers banged in the most runs, (until the last game of the season when he was overtaken by Ben and Alex in a dead heat!)  although Andy Bush was statistically the best batsmen thanks to a huge run of not outs.  Dominic Spillane's 68 was just behind Alex's top season score of 69, which were 2 of 6 x 50 pluses scored (Dom 1, Ben 2, Alex 2 and Clarkster 1). Down at the bottom end of the table Fletch had 5 ducks this season (lets open a Chinese Restaurant) although Steve, to his eternal credit did actually total up more than his least ever number of runs in the season (2 in the whole 1999 season) 

Fielding              All season, excluding Captains Day

Rodders Comments on the Season and Stats

I've been looking at aggregate runs and wickets which I think shows an interesting balance of ability, longevity and lack of a social life. On all fronts we have players achieving milestones in 2001 and approaching milestones in 2002.
Firstly batting. Still no one's broken the magic 1000 aggregate runs for the club, although a few of the current crop undoubtedly will. 200 runs in a season is still the mark of a fine year:

• * in 2001 for the first time we have more than one player break 200. In fact 4 did - Neil; Ben, Alex and Paul.
• * Simon Mustafa's 453 in a season is the best ever and the only season aggregate over 300 and I just don't see it being beaten unless Mackay joins the club.
• * Neil (795) overtook me as the 2nd highest all time run-scorer and is now only 25 behind Charles (820).
• * The big 1000 surely must be broken this year. Neil is the bookies favorite requiring 205; Ben needs 325 (he may need to push himself up the order); and surely 300+ is beyond Robert, Fletch, and Richard, but nothing would surprise me.
• * Alex Newton also joins the 500 club with nearly 300 this season.

• * Only Steve Jacobs has taken more than 20 wickets in a season. He took 27 in 2001.
• * Steve has now overtaken Charles as leading wicket taker of all time and is on 69. Big question: can he crack 100 in 2002. Start digging up the wicket now.
• * Fletch took 19 wickets in 2001 (most of them catches in the deep?) which is the best performance by a spin (sic) bowler ever, and therefore deserves a fair bit of credit.
• * Fletchers now on 54 and Andy Bush needs one more for 50 (Ben - you should have let him bowl another over in the last match).
• * Strangely we've only ever had 4 5-fors, 3 6-fors and nothing better than that.
• * Best ever bowling figures are 7-2-16-6 back in 1993 by Simon Curtis, but my favorite is still Charles' 4-0-4-5 allowing a single every over (to help rotate the strike?)
• * There is a new record for most runs conceded in an innings which is now held by Fletch with 8-0-75-2, thus relieving Robert O-E after 3 years and by one rune at the bottom of the table On pure stamina no one comes close to Fletch. I remember his 50th game on the 1999 tour to Malvern and for the record:
• * Fletch has played 99 games for the club, excluding captains days. I think we should celebrate his 100th and I'm declaring myself available for selection now.
• * Other members of the 50 club are: me (71), Irwin (53) and Charles (50)
• * Those who are close to 50 are: Steve (46); Neil (45); Andy Bush (43); Richard (40); and Ben, Robert O-E, Dominic and Alex all over 35.