Hollingbourne 1s too good for the 2s

Bearsted's home fixture was switched to Hollingbourne to accommodate the Bearsted Fayre on The Green. In the highlight of the afternoon for the "home" team, Tim Croom won the toss and asked Hollingbourne to bat first once the covers were removed on a showery afternoon. Unfortunately further rain did not appear.

Given Hollingbourne 1s have traditionally been playing league cricket against Bearsted 1s, when Jack Feehan struck in the first over it seemed like the game may be closer than expected, but it wasn't to be. The Bearsted bowlers stuck to their task with David Vant (3-81) and Jack Feehan (2-63) being the most successful. Some clean powerful hitting saw 3 Hollingbourne batsman pass 50, and along with their positive calling, running and pressuring of the fielders saw them amass 315/6 in overs. In the field, Stephen Spain took his usual couple of catches, making some difficult chances look routine.

After tea, Bearsted set off in pursuit of the total which saw them need 7.9 runs an over. At 8/0 off the first, things were looking good as we were ahead of the rate, only for it to quickly fall away. Tim Croom (37) and Dan Skinner (2) put on 53 for the first wicket before Skinner was bizarrely runout ambling to the "safe" end, as the exocet throw from fine leg just missed the stumps at the keepers end before a direct hit at the other end saw Dan a good distance short.

Wickets fell at regular intervals from then on as only Tim Croom and Chris Filmer (13) made double figures, while extras contributed 41 to the total of 109 all out.

While Bearsted will return to Hollingbourne for the away fixture later this season, it would be a surprise if the two teams are in the same division next year. It was clear that as Hollingbourne have had to to join the KCVL at the bottom of the structure, they are significantly below where they should be based on the quality of the players they possess.