The 2s found themselves back at the Bcc beach club for the all important fixture against Farningham.
It was yet again lovely conditions and all seemed well until we had realised the M20 was shut and half our team and most of the oppos were running late. All that was needed was some sensible discussion about changing the start time and all would be well... The oppos skipper, who shall remain unnamed, decided he would try to make things rather difficult by refusing until we agreed to 35 overs, (lack of bowling mate?)
Anyway head of international relations J. Haggart managed to smooth things over and we eventually agreed.
After all this our dear skipper was clearly flustered and managed to lose the toss...
We opened with Jack Vening in first appearance for the 2s this year down the hill and Baker up, the oppos bats looked decent enough, punishing any miss in line and length , jack bowled decently with a couple jaffas but clearly a bit nervous 5-0-35-0
Baker eventually struck in his last over removing their annoying skipper[Tom Francis], breaking the opening partnership at 90 for 1 , he finished with figures of 9-2-32-1, Keagan Luke bowled a tidy spell of 6 -0-31-0 down the hill and looked in good rhythm, on a pitch that resembles the very road that was closed earlier.
Norts then contributed with a tidy couple of overs up the hill , it was now down to splatts and paul to take us to the end with the aim of keeping them below 250 [ideal],
230 [really ideal] ,200[bloody wowsers we are good]
We managed to keep them in the really ideal category with them finishing on 229 for 6 , a tidy spell of 9-0-2-58 from paul was excellent,[despite mr annoying widing him a few times), he removed their well set opener and grabbed another later on in his spell , he was supported well by Latter 9-0-0-54.
I've mentioned this before but it was a genuinely good effort with such a young bowling attack on this track; Well done.
After tea the familiar opening partnership of Pearce and Manks went out to open, Manks to face first ball and disaster struck he was bowled first ball yikes ... Latter walked in at 3 and was looking assured and he hit a nice couple 4s before being bowled off a ball that stopped for 8 , The skipper at the other end was looking good thankfully and was joined by Chris ‘cut shot’ Filmer , he really lived up to his name this week by cutting literally anything from short and wide to leg stump half-volleys … brilliant , those who want some more information on this refer to his wagon wheel its marvellous.
Chris and Pearcy batted really well together putting on an excellent partnership of 139 getting us to 155 off 25 overs ‘surely we would breeze this?’
Then, disaster struck as Chris was bowled for a well made 82 off 71 and Head of international relations J . Haggart walked out to the crease with great intent, ‘well intent of running the Skipper out’ Pearcy departed for a good 60 off 79 and Ollie Marriner strode out but fortunately was not fooled by any of Haggarts devious running tactics…
The pair batted well up until the 33rd over where they had got us within touching distance of the total , Haggart bowled for 15, 203 for 5. Norts joined ollie and gave us hope until ollie was bowled for 27 off 23 a really top knock in the situation but it did also make Baker at 11 start jittering…
Evan Hutchins on 2s debut joined Norts and was as cool as a cucumber , not flustered by the oppos over-appealing or the fact that this was a must win game , he nudged the ball round well and clipped a lovely 4 off his legs, Norts also batted in the same ilk and by the 37th over we only needed 2 to win… They brought the field up and Norts knew exactly what to do, absolutely wallop it over long on for 6! To win the game!
Excellent win that over a frankly horrible bunch
Top work by the youngsters and as usual the oldies
Cheers
Baker