Quick finish at Farningham

Bearsted 2s travelled up the A20 to Farningham with confidence high and a decent line up. The weather for once was clement. And, amazingly, the skipper won the toss. We chose to bat.

The opposition had a decent quick who started accurately. The rest of their attack was not as dangerous but all bowled a decent line and length.

Croom and Lush opened the batting but like subsequent batsmen seemed a little subdued and placid. With the opposition only starting with ten we did not seem to play our shots or press the fielders by running singles.

Highlight of the opening partnership was confusion over a possible run which led to the pair changing their minds suddenly. Lush slipped and went to ground a long way short of his crease. A desperate crawl and lunge left him still stranded some distance out. Fortunately the ball was thrown to the other end and he survived, just.

Croom then fell to an excellent running catch for 20. The Farningham side fielded well throughout.

Richard Luxton came in at 3. Helpfully he was told by the departing Croom and his partner Lush that the opener was a spinner. That was slightly worrying as he was in fact bowling gentle away swing with the seam distinctly up. Luxton fell to another good catch for 13. Tim Lush got a thick edge to point for 19 and we were 73 for 3.

Daly missed a straight one. Haggart was caught out. Feehan was promoted and was distinctly unlucky to be given out l.b.w. The bowler was right arm round and angling it across right handers from wide in the crease. Feehan was hit on the front foot after a decent stride forward.

Skinner came in to save the day. He saw a juicy wide long hop which was taken by the keeper at full stretch. The umpire was signalling a wide but Skinner had nicked it and walked. A display of honesty that was frankly surprising from a lawyer.

Filmer was going well making good use of his trade mark late cut but was eventually out for 39. Gutteridge ended up not out 20 but our final total was a rather disappointing 142 for 8.

Tea was taken; an eloquent talk from the skipper lifted the spirits and Bearsted went into the field thinking the task was not beyond them. Sadly, any confidence was remarkably short lived. The opposition batsmen looked very comfortable. Even the usually accurate Gutteridge had lost his bearings and went for 22 runs off his opening two overs. No-one really troubled the Farningham pair who put on 112 for the opening wicket. We seemed to feed their favourite shots, bowling a full length to the one who liked driving and a shorter length to the back foot player. One eventually holed out to John Haggert at long on off Feehan’s bowling.

Our only other wicket came as a result of a remarkable bit of fielding by Ben Lush. Patrolling on the short boundary he sprinted some distance towards a hard hit shot. The umpire started signally for 4 runs as the ball headed to the boundary. Lush was not giving up though and with a tremendous sprint, slid in and dramatically stopped the ball . He then picked it up and threw it to Feehan who whipped off the bails.

Less impressive was the piece of fielding by Skinner who ran initially in the wrong direction, changed tack with the grace of a wallowing hippo and threw himself at the ball missing it by several metres and a fair few seconds after it had gone past.

We were well beaten by 8 wickets in about 20 overs. Richard Luxton then took on all comers on the pool table. His wily experience and misspent youth successfully navigating the contours the baize which was as flat as Dolly Parton.