2s MAKE HARD WORK AT OTFORD

The 2s travelled to Otford after last week’s unpleasant defeat. Their hopes of a more sporting game were not to be disappointed by Otford who played it in an excellent spirit. Indeed their skipper should be praised for his approach which included ensuring the youngsters in his side all played an active part. The pitch was in good condition.

Skipper Croom, after the anomaly of last week’s correct call, carried out the toss under the close and watchful gaze of his teammates. To everyone’s relief he reverted to type and promptly lost the toss. Otford invited us to bat.

Skipper Croom opened the batting with Leo Charlton. Fortunately Charlton’s cricket is a lot better than his meteorology after he confidently announced “It’s going to rain at 4 o’clock”.

Croom seemed in a hurry. He played and missed with an extravagant pull on his second ball that shaved off stump. He certainly was in a hurry when running between the wickets, if only for fear of being overtaken. Young Charlton appears to have inherited his father’s athleticism (but fortunately not his looks) and is distinctly rapid. One quick single, taken when the ball went about 4 yards from the skipper’s bat, left the Welshman panicking and praying for the return of his more sedate opening partners.

Perhaps exhausted by his partner’s running, the captain failed to move his feet to the pitch of a straight drive, lofted a catch to the covers and departed for 9 immediately looking for a comfortable chair.

Luxton appeared at No. 3 but soon missed a straight one and was out for 7. Barker got a bottom edge onto his stumps cutting a ball that kept a little low. Charlton, having batted really well, was caught at midwicket for 29 and suddenly we were 68 for 4.

Horrocks was l.b.w after not moving his feet and we were 101 for 5 when Skinner went out to join Haggert. There was a severe danger we were not going to use up our allotted overs. Skinner, whose speciality is using up overs without ever scoring runs, was born for this task. Haggert was bowled by a slow full toss for a useful 26. Feehan came to the wicket and scored 5.

Redman came out and immediately looked in good form. Skinner, who surprisingly had started scoring some runs with a powerful cut, was out for 18 after a pre-meditated sweep shot went wrong. With only a few overs left, Redman unleashed some powerful hitting including a long six over square leg. Gutteridge finished on 6 but Redman was the star of the show with an excellent unbeaten 39. We had limped to a fairly unimpressive total of 179.

Tea was excellent and we took to the field suitably refreshed.

Feehan bowled well down the slope, beating the bat on several occasions. He accounted for the opener and finished with figures of 7-1-25-1. Slevin came up the slope and after a few weeks away was not as tidy as usual but still only went for 18 off his 5 overs.

Charlton junior replaced Slevin (having those two and Feehan in the side reduced our average age to only 67) and bowled well. He appears to have the Botham-esque ability to take wickets with his bad deliveries. One half tracker failed to bounce and had the unfortunate batsman plum in front. His other wicket came courtesy of a long hop but he finished with figures of 7-1-21-2.

We still had our miserly bowlers in reserve and they did indeed come to the fore. Gutteridge generally bowled an excellent length, was unlucky not to get a wicket but conceded only 21 off his 8 overs.

Redman came in off his long run (4 paces) and took 2 for 28 off his 7 overs, one courtesy of a good catch by Croom running in from mid on. Croom had earlier swooped and thrown down the one stump he could see. Perhaps inspired by their leader, the fielding was generally good. Redman diving full length early on, Barker looking tidy behind the stumps and even Skinner looked close to competent finding himself cruelly positioned in the covers for much of the innings.

Horroocks was as horrible as ever, taking no mercy on the opposition youngsters and tail end finishing with figures of 4.3-1-16-4.

Otford finished some 55 runs short of their target and we took some light refreshments in the Bull pub opposite to celebrate a return to winning ways.

Next week sees the visit of Farningham who hammered us in the away fixture so we will need to be on top of our game