Tipton St John have had no fewer than 13 games called off this season, six because of the weather and six where opposition have not been able to raise a side to complete a friendly fixture, writes Phil Wright.

Tipton were guilty of this on one occasion where players were off to Twickenham and Wembley in May!

Sadly, it seems that some teams have their fill of cricket with Saturday league matches and the joy of friendly matches against, often, more elderly players has no attraction for them.

On this occasion, both Tipton St John and Erratics had been let down so we were able to arrange this replacement fixture at the last minute.

Erratics won the toss and soon found themselves at 22-4 with both David Birch and Mark Channon bowling eight overs and achieving great figures of 2-16.

Two partnerships boosted the Erratics’ innings. Firstly, Martin Weiler with 34 assisted Chris Cook, then Chris Ferro with 15 took the score 119-5, before a late flurry of wickets concluded the innings at 132-8. Cook remained unbeaten on 64.

Tipton’s reply was hampered by losing Phil Tolley for nine, and, despite a good innings by Alex Tubbs who scored 41, no other batsmen got into double figures.

They were handily poised at 61-3, but once Tubbs was dismissed Tipton’s fragile batting order was exposed with five players failing to trouble Bruce, our scorer.

The final game of the season is home to Crewkerne this coming Sunday (September 24).