{"id":774,"date":"2008-10-05T23:05:29","date_gmt":"2008-10-05T22:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=774"},"modified":"2009-10-28T12:00:33","modified_gmt":"2009-10-28T12:00:33","slug":"great-britain-versus-the-bangers-game-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=774","title":{"rendered":"Great Britain versus the Bangers: Game report"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gb\"<\/h6>\n
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\"The<\/h4>\n<\/dt>\n
The players line up at the County Ground, Taunton, for the national anthem<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/h6>\n

\u00c2\u00a0
\nThe much-anticipated contest between Great Britain and a team of cricketers more than lived up to\u00c2\u00a0expectations thanks to a classy performance from the national side, a willingness among\u00c2\u00a0the cricketers to\u00c2\u00a0apply raw talent, and an enthusiastic crowd made up <\/span>of baseball\u00c2\u00a0fans and newcomers to the sport. Five’s Jonny Gould provided a commentary on the game through the ground’s PA system,\u00c2\u00a0which kept the aficionados entertained while guiding the newcomers through the intricacies of the\u00c2\u00a0match as it unfolded.<\/span><\/p>\n

A great amount of effort was put into making this event a success,\u00c2\u00a0not least in\u00c2\u00a0converting a cricket pitch into a baseball field.\u00c2\u00a0You\u00c2\u00a0can see on\u00c2\u00a0the picture above that\u00c2\u00a0an outfield fence was erected and infield dirt cut-outs made\u00c2\u00a0(these were not as substantial as on the mocked-up image of the diamond shown in a previous post<\/a>, but I don’t think the groundstaff would have\u00c2\u00a0agreed to that\u00c2\u00a0amount of de-turfing). On the picture above, you can also see\u00c2\u00a0an electronic scoreboard,\u00c2\u00a0a rarity in British baseball.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the cricketers, three household names showed up: spinner Ashley Giles; wicket-keeper Geraint Jones; and, of course, Trescothick himself. The other spots on the Bangers’ roster were filled by\u00c2\u00a0fellow cricketers as well as two\u00c2\u00a0very experienced baseball players, Tom\u00c2\u00a0Gillespie\u00c2\u00a0and Cody Cain. Cain caught the whole game (which was a\u00c2\u00a0smart idea, as an experienced\u00c2\u00a0catcher is one of the fundamental ingredients of a decent ball game), while Gillespie was there to help with pitching duties\u00c2\u00a0if required.
\n\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overview of the game<\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Team<\/strong><\/td>\n1<\/strong><\/td>\n2<\/strong><\/td>\n3<\/strong><\/td>\n4<\/strong><\/td>\n5<\/strong><\/td>\n6<\/strong><\/td>\n7<\/strong><\/td>\n8<\/strong><\/td>\nFinal<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Great Britain<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n21<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Bangers<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n1<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The 20-run margin of victory reflected the gulf in ability between talented athletes with baseball experience and talented athletes who had not been exposed to the game before. This is clearly not a sport that you can excel in from day one. Even over the course of\u00c2\u00a0eight innings, though,\u00c2\u00a0there were\u00c2\u00a0marked improvements in\u00c2\u00a0the quality of fielding by the cricketers. Early in the game, the lack of experience made for some\u00c2\u00a0curious fielding plays, but by the end of the game, the Bangers were producing\u00c2\u00a0some slick outs.
\n\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Highlights for the Bangers<\/h4>\n

Marcus Trescothick was the pick of the batters, going 3-for-4 on three infield hits (Gould suggested in his commentary that one of these may have been a “home-field call”, but it would have taken a harsh scorer to deprive Trescothick of a hit during\u00c2\u00a0his benefit match). James Hildreth, who plays his cricket for Somerset, was the only other\u00c2\u00a0Banger to get a hit,\u00c2\u00a0a single that\u00c2\u00a0resulted in the solitary score by Trescothick’s side, with Geraint Jones coming home from second on the play, after having got there via a walk and a steal. Steffan Jones was perhaps a little unlucky not to get a hit, picking out Alex Malihoudis in centre-field with hard-hit fly-balls in his first two at-bats.<\/p>\n

Between Charl Willoughby, Ashley Giles, and Craig Kieswetter, the cricketers pitched five of the\u00c2\u00a0eight innings, calling on Gillespie for the other three. All three of these cricketers looked like they could develop into very effective pitchers, with Giles showing great control and the other two players some raw velocity.
\n\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Highlights for Great Britain<\/h4>\n

Everyone in the ground must surely\u00c2\u00a0have wanted to see a ball sail over the outfield fence at some point in the game, and while Great Britain managed only one home run, off the bat of Ian Young, it came with the bases loaded. Aside from this grand slam, other highlights\u00c2\u00a0were\u00c2\u00a0Brant Ust’s four hits (including a triple that drove in the opening run) and\u00c2\u00a0doubles from Chris Falls, Ryan Trask, and Will Lintern. The winning pitcher was Craig\u00c2\u00a0Pycock.
\n\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Potential benefits for British baseball<\/h4>\n

While the day’s main purpose\u00c2\u00a0was to form a part of Marcus\u00c2\u00a0Trescothick’s benefit year,\u00c2\u00a0there were clearly also some\u00c2\u00a0potential benefits for British baseball.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was no official attendance figure, but estimates for the number of fans at the County Ground ranged from 800 to 1000, which represents the biggest crowd to watch a baseball match in Britain for some years. The high-quality performance from the Great Britain side should have raised the sport’s profile among newcomers at the game. And the cricketers appeared to have really enjoyed the experience, which is a good sign if we are to have a repeat event (there were rumours that a similar day could be organized\u00c2\u00a0at Kent’s ground in Canterbury).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The players line up at the County Ground, Taunton, for the national anthem \u00c2\u00a0 The much-anticipated contest between Great Britain and a team of cricketers more than lived up to\u00c2\u00a0expectations thanks to a classy performance from the national side, a willingness among\u00c2\u00a0the cricketers to\u00c2\u00a0apply raw talent, and an enthusiastic crowd made up of baseball\u00c2\u00a0fans and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,21],"tags":[85,63],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-baseball-2","category-international-baseball-2","tag-cricket","tag-great-britain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5967,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions\/5967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}