2s beat Penshurst

After last week’s cancellation, the 2s started their league campaign at home v Penshurst. The Green was looking lovely and the weather was fine.

In a rare, but hopefully auspicious, moment skipper Tim Croom actually won the toss. He chose to bat.

Penshurst did not have an umpire, after a discussion with both skippers it was agreed that our umpire would take the bowler’s end throughout the game. That was despite him saying he would actually prefer not to as it’s tough to concentrate there for 80 overs.

Croom and Latter opened the batting. The away attack was decent. They generally bowled wide in the crease angling it in to the batsmen. The wicket was slow after midweek rain and balls short of a length often got held up. Run scoring was not easy and decent shots often did not reach the rope.

The batsmen generally looked comfortable though. Croom reached a fine half century outscoring his partner. Latter fell first giving a charge down the wicket, for 40, with the score at 110, an excellent century partnership.

The arrival of Dave Charlton gave the innings fresh impetus with his fine stroke play and hard running between the wickets.
Croom fell soon, caught out for 60. Possibly to have a breather, or the opportunity to have a beer with his mates who were cheering him on.

Pearce came out at 4 and looked comfortable and graceful. The wicket was drying out a little in the sun.
Shot of the day was undoubtedly a monster hit by Charlton. Advancing down the wicket he gave himself room to swing his arms and launched the ball over long on. It easily cleared the roof of the houses and was last seen heading towards the WI Hall. There was no point trying to look for that and a replacement ball was found.

Charlton was bowled off his pads for a rapid 40.
Chris Filmer was next in. He accompanied Pearce and the pair put on an unbeaten 60. Pearce finished on 46 and Filmer 34

We scored 37 off the first 10 overs, 48 the next ten, 62 in the third quarter, 92 in the final ten. Impressive acceleration and we still had Barker padded up.
239 for 3 looked a decent total. Did we have enough bowling to defend it?

Shortly before the restart, Penshurst announced that they would now be umpiring from one of the bowler’s ends. It was pointed out to their skipper that was not had been agreed. He was being goaded on by one of his players who was expressing his views forcefully, despite not having been a party to the agreement reached before the game.

It all got rather heated. Our umpire declined to carry on officiating in those circumstances.
Eventually wiser heads in the Penshurst team prevailed, an apology was made to the umpire and the game resumed.

Damps opened up to their skipper, who is the star batsman in the Penshurst line. Perhaps distracted by the kerfuffle, the captain stepped right in front of his stumps and was out plumb lbw, first ball of the innings.

Ben Lush opened from the Oak end and bowled some beauties but was a little inconsistent.
Damps however was bowling a great line. He went through unchanged, also getting the wicket of their hard hitting No 3. His final figures were 9-0-2-27.

Dave Charlton replaced Lush and was immediately on his line and length. He and Dampier are both cricketers who think hard about the game. Charlton had one wicket courtesy of an excellent catch by Barker at midwicket who made it look much easier than it was. His other came from a stumping by Pearce. Charlton’s final figures were 9-1-2-20.

Young Ollie Marriner bowled a decent left arm over. He occasionally lost his balance and thus his line. However he took two two wickets, one clipping the top of off stump. He also fielded well.
Latter bowled three overs and took a good wicket.

Abs Malik showed potential with his two overs, although he could perhaps get more control with a shorter run up.
Jamie Baker got through 5 overs for only 23 runs with some good deliveries.
Penshurst finished on 171 for 9 off their 40 overs. A total helped by 25 wides from our bowlers.

Highlight of the fielding was an excellent pick up and throw by Ben Lush to hit the stumps directly and get a run out.

A good victory after a little bit of excitement at the interval. It should be added that the vast majority of the Penshurst players were lovely.
Next Saturday we are away at Southborough.