| DAVE LILE |
Name:
Dave Lile (AKA:
"Mooks")
Cricket: RH Bat; RA Medium
Debut: 2005
When Charlie announced that he had persuaded a Kiwi to turn out for us I can’t have been alone in having visions of a poor man’s Martin Crowe or even a Richard Hadlee.
Initial impressions were positive, well he had the right accent, but having turned up with a raging hangover, Dave had one of those days in the field were the ball follows you around mercilessly, keen to embarrass you at every turn.
He did though manage to bowl four tidy overs and due to our top orders dominance, wasn’t required to bat. Dave played in a further 8 fixtures that season and it’s fair to say we all had to downgrade our hopes of Hadlee, he did however pick up 5 wickets and the fielding improved immeasurably including a fantastic performance at Moulsford that included a fine run out.
The batting though is another story, considering his debut was in the second fixture of the 2005 season, we had to wait until August 2008 for his first runs (1,190 days to be precise), and the cheer he received, when he finally got off the mark, rivalled that given to Simon who had completed a spectacular century earlier in the innings.
Those stats though do have to be put into context; he had managed only 13 appearances during the period and it was only his sixth innings as subsequent to his debut Dave had relocated to London and then became a first time father plus you can’t knock a players commitment who commutes via the train and a bike to turn up for a Sunday friendly.
Dave, normally a relaxed laid back character, earned legendary status on the washed out 2007 tour to Shrewsbury, he got himself a club nickname, Mooks, due to his preferred taste for that antipodean clothing label and he seemed to feature prominently in photos from the weekend, mind you anyone who’s watched an All Blacks game with him will testify that the ‘other’ Dave is only a couple of pints below the surface!
UPDATE: Dave's Ipsden career has come to an end due to his repatriation to New Zealand in 2010.
