11/05/2003 v SOUTHFLEET

Won

When everyone eventually turned up (ignore the fixtures sheet all games start at 2.00pm till further notice) Richard won the toss and elected to bat. Duly taking up the honours himself with Neil the openers faced an early onslaught from some nippy but erratic swing bowling.

With a careful eye being kept on the uneven bounce scoring was initially slow with the major contribution coming from Mr. Extras. It was just starting to spit with rain when Neil managed to let one through the gap that demolished his off stump

Anthony joined Richard and it wasn’t long before he was scoring freely helping the total up to 47 off ten overs. However in the 11th he top edged one which rose a bit and was gobbled up by slip.

Chris was next in and this also heralded a change in the bowling. Richard soon after survived a most confusing run out when it appeared he had lost out to a direct hit -–only for the wicket keeper to admit that he had knocked the stumps with his glove.

The uneven bounce soon did for Chris when he unfortunately misjudged one that popped up and pushed it to a waiting mid wicket. This saw the introduction of Tim who, reunited with his favourite bat took great delight in the short boundries and was soon clattering the ball to all corners in the manner (as Martin described) of ‘someone who comes from a long line of lumberjacks’.

Richard was quite happy to let Tim take the lion’s share but was at the same time stealthy building his own innings. The pair seemed to be approaching invincible status when Tim was finally bowled trying to put one in Northfleet via Neptune!!! Which left them with a fantastic partnership of 94.

Adam joined Richard and together saw out the innings without further incident leaving Richard carrying his bat for a terrific 46 not out. And a score of 175 off 35 overs After a brief tea/pint in the next door pub the turnaround saw Richard and Neil open the bowling with our old chum Liam Coleman opening for Southfleet and as per usual calmly set about getting the total.

With a steady start for Southfleet it was imperative we made some sort of breakthrough and this came in the shape of a smart bit of fielding from Adam for a run out which disposed of the other opener. This set the standard for the fielding which later saw both John and Neil responsible for two more run –outs which accounted for Liam and Sean Coleman respectively

Neil was replaced by Martin but not before he managed to get a wicket to lbw. Anthony came on for Richard and showed his handiness with the ball as well as the bat bowling some good line and length and was eventually rewarded with a clean bowled wicket.

Martin once again was straight away into some excellent line and length and it wasn’t long before he tempted the batsmen with one which he boosted into long on where a waiting Neil eagerly snapped it up.

Southfleet were slowly and steadily making some real inroads into the score and the last six overs saw them requiring around six an over and with them batting right down the order it seemed eminently gettable.

Pete and Adam saw out the last few overs. Adam struck first when Tim took a catch at mid off then Pete followed with one being caught at point by Martin he then made amends for missing a chance in the gully off Adam by getting another caught and bowled. This left Southfleet needing eight off the last over and Adam duly finished it off.

This was a fantastic match with some terrific individual performances notably from Richard and Tim and an excellent all round team effort in the field bearing in mind we only had ten. If all our remaining games are only half as exciting this year we can count ourselves very lucky.