The long awaited last League game of the season, on the green against newly promoted Shoreham and Otford
The weather was good, the team looked good and all Captain Pearce had to do was win the toss on the typical road -looking track.
The Marvellous opening bowling partnership of Adamson and Baker started up and got right into business of bothering the opening bats and after a couple of dropped chances early ,Baker struck first part in due to a great bit of captaincy putting deep mid-wicket out to there attacking opener, he fell to a great catch from Haggart 35-1, Baker then struck again at the end of the over with a lovely caught behind by Kenny stood up 35-2.
Matt soon joined in on the fun bowling there number 4 in classic matt fashion, he bowled well with a few runs in snicks 5-0-1-42
Sammy was then brought into the attack after 12 weeks out to injury and we had missed him dearly , he got right back into his work bowling his flighty , floaty, slow , swinging , drifty things, Baker managed to grab another finishing with 9-3-36-3 a fine effort.
Stevie B was brought on up the hill and was looking good (for a down the hill bowler) he picked up 2 wickets in his second over, both caught behind courtesy of some lovely out-swing, it was at this point we had them 100 for 8 , now how did that happen if we were taking all these wickets? , well... Their snick-driving young opener was looking good and had managed to get past 50 and was starting to play some good shots, fortunately Sammy was up to the task and after a dropped catch , he struck next ball with a great catch from Stevie B at deep square.
We had bowled them out for 125 , a fantastic effort on the green where you would expect to be chasing 250 plus, Sammy finished with fine figures of 8.1-0-30-4 and Stevie B 4-0-15-2.
Should be a nice and straightforward chase, then on the beers.....
Pearce and Angus opened up and oppos bowlers had started well, Pearce played a lovley shot through backward point for 4 to get off the mark but then sadly departed soon after to a razzing catch in the corden, Splatts then joined Kenny and got things going with a few lovley 4s , getting us past 30 before departing for 12, 31 for 2 , all is calm...
Adamson then joined Kenny and got the run rate going in his usual fashion of hitting over the top and disturbing the tidy bowlers lines and lengths, we had made our way to 56 before Matt unusually patted one back to the bowler for a quick 17, we had this in the bag surely?!
Cut shot then joined Kenny and things settled down for while as they both navigated the good bowling whilst still keeping us well above the run rate, this was until Shoreham bought on there League leading wicket- taker to throw a few spanners in the works , which he did removing Filmer for 9 then 2 balls later Haggart with an unlucky dismissal, where the ball trickled onto the stumps 79 for 5 , yikes! not to worry we still had this in the bag, or did we?
The calm figure of Evan Hutchins walked out to join Kenny and the pair batted excellently together and with the field up it allowed Evan to strike a few 4s over the top and taking us past the 100 mark and the win certainly ours, (well that's what we thought).
Disaster struck,Kenny snicked off for an excellent 35 off 83 but then what followed wasn't excellent both Evan and Tom departed in the last ball of the 31st and 1st ball of the 32nd, we had lost 3 wickets for no runs!? poooooooo!15 to win , not good, fortunately Stevie B was in and hopefully Baker didn't fancy the mallard again.... well he did and Sammy walked in with us and needed 13 in 6.5 overs, easy right?
After a few nervy singles, Stevie B who had batted sensibly in the situation, Biffed one over mid-wicket to seal the game 9 down with 3.5 overs left, Thank god for that!
It was nice to win our last game and finish off a good bit of form 2nd half of the season ,we had won 5 out of our last 6 sealing 3rd in the league and even more importantly, surviving relegation, as at the half way point of the season we were in a tricky position.
Well done to the bowlers today especially Sammy who came back after so long out and picked up a 4fer, top knock by Angus holding it all together and well supported by Matt , Evan , Stevie B and Sammy.
A big thanks must go to Captain Pearce and Vice Haggart for all there hard work this season, alot of goes unoticed behind the scenes,Pearcy also finished the season top run scorer in div 4 with a whopping 837 runs @119.57 with a strike rate over 100; mental
Thanks to Ian Sayer for umpiring most of the Season and to Barry and Croomy for filling in and also thanks to Jac for scoring you've all been excellent.
Thanks for the Season legends
Baker.