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Robert Cooke: completely mis-reading the pitch

In the sixties I was playing for my hometown club near Liverpool. It was a beautiful warm, sunny day and we hoped to win the toss and bat first on what looked to be an absolute belter of a pitch. We estimated that if we could bat first on that, two hundred would be a reasonable total.  I went in to bat at my usual number ten position --- with the score at 31 for 8.  I batted for half an hour (longer than usual), during which I made 49, while 5 runs were added at the other end and our hoped-for 200 became 85 all out. The innings was over so quickly that tea was nowhere ready, so it was agreed that we would play the second innings for a specified period, by which time tea would be ready.  By the time the agreed break came I had already taken three wickets on my way to 5 for 30, and we won the game.  The pitch we we expected to score 200 on yielded a match aggregate of 150!  That 49 remained my highest score despite the fact that I played our great game in seven different decades.

Memory added on July 3, 2021

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