10/07/2011 v Wadhurst

drawn

Scorer returns to field of play

A really nice day down at Wadhurst. A depleted side of 10 players was boosted by the metal shinned dot balled master scorer John to make 11. Bob had pulled his groin, Pete had a bad back, Tim F kept getting spasms (and these were all playing this week). Perhaps advisedly Jason (skipper for the day) agreed to a timed game and to put them in bat so if all went wrong John could at least bat out a draw!

It was a good start, John stopped a pulled shot but cleverly let it bounce slightly away from him to encourage the batsmen to run. Clive picked up the ball and threw it to Jason who knocked off the bails. With Billy struggling with the ball and the sloped pitch Pete came on and within 30 or so minutes had ripped through three of the dangerous top order batsman. A further couple of wickets from Jason (who had a tremendous spell) and one from Bob kept their score down to 213 which was good considering at one point it was looking like a 250 or so.

With not too many recognised batsman Jason made the decision to make a change. He picked a man full of confidence and thrust him into the mix at number 2. Pete, (yes this is not a typo), stepped up to the plate and played himself to a personal best 29 with a few cracking shots to the boundary. Clive 30, Tim M 27 and Billy 20 not out attempted to reach their target but unfortunately our early run rate just wasn't enough and we got to the stage where we had to take some risks and lost some wickets eventually settling for a draw. Special mention to youngster James who walked away with a strikerate of 400. Undoubtebly the man of the match was Pete for the leading wicket taker with his three top order batsman wickets, opening the batting and almost top scoring there.

Definitely a nice group to play against, must continue for next year.