2s beat Bidborough

The 2s travelled to Bidborough for a must win game. In fact only one player travelled to Bidborough (Steve Benjamin), the other 10 read the instructions and realised we were playing on the desolate Vizards Fields at Judd School.

As expected, the skipper lost the toss and Bidborough elected to bat. This was based on the fact that in the earlier fixture, they had been on the receiving end of our only decent score this season and they didn’t want to give us that sort of opportunity again.

Harry Slevin and Louis French opened the bowling, with early success. The Bidborough captain drove straight and uppishly to the right hand side of Tim Croom at mid off. Amazingly the one outstretched, token effort hand got in the way of the ball and Bidborough were one down. In the same over, Louis (6-2-6-2) found the edge of the bat, Simon Barker caught it between his wrists (for the first of his four catches), and they were two down after two overs.

Slevin (6-0-19-1) soon picked up his wicket to make it 18/3 and Bearsted were on top.

Ben Lush (9-2-20-3) and Steve Benjamin (9-2-11-1) entered the attack, taking regular wickets as the opposition attempted to bat out the 40 overs rather than look to set a target.

The Daves Latter & Charlton finished off the innings, both bowling 5 overs for 20 runs, with Charlton taking a wicket. Bidborough closed on 99/8 off 40 overs.

After tea, Croom and Latter opened the innings. Bidborough had a similar flying start in the field. After a short ball was pulled for 4, Croom (4) was caught at the wicket and the annual appearance from Mike Redman (0) ended first ball, bowled by the straight one.

Charlton (17) and Latter steadied the innings, before another wobble saw Charlton and Louis French (0) depart in consecutive overs.

Simon Barker (18*) and Latter (47) took the innings to brink of victory, before Latter was bowled looking for his third boundary of the over. The ball that actually bowled him, ricocheted away to the boundary, confusing a few spectators who were applauding his half century!

Special mention again to u13 players Ewan Coveney and Flynn Armstrong, without who we would have struggled to get a team out. They both fielded excellently, showing good energy and commitment.

Ewan (0*), batting at number 7 got to the wicket this week, but was denied the chance of a bat as Simon Barker finished things before Ewan had the opportunity to face a ball!

In a tight division, this victory ensures Bearsted are not relegated, and a win in the final league game next week would see us finish 4th of 10 teams, just one place outside the promotion places!