Devoted readers, or football fans, may recall our away match at Ightham this season. We were bowled out for 75 by an outstanding attack, lost by 9 wickets and were safely home by 5pm to watch the Champions League final. We accordingly approached this home match with some trepidation.
Fortunately, despite 17 regular players being unavailable, we managed to get 4 teams out this week. Exciting times for the club.
Ightham had declared that their rapid first team opener was playing for them, but he would not bowl quick.
The pitch was looking in great nick and we had our shiny new sightscreens up, thanks to Nigel Baker.
Skinner won the toss and chose to bat.
Baker and Damps opened up. The Ightham attack was decent, especially the lad bowling up the hill. However it wasn’t as dangerous as their outstanding bowling earlier in the season.
The pair progressed well before Damps chipped one for 18.
Tom Gagg got a rather good delivery first ball and was clean bowled.
Dave Patton was in at number 4.
At drinks we had only scored a solid 90 from the twenty overs but we soon started accelerating. The outfield was lightning quick and the pair started playing some great shots.
Dave holed out at mid-off for 33 from only 36 balls.
Horrible Horrocks was in next. Once he had got over the stress of only having one boot. Fortunately his skipper had found it last week and kept it safe. Bloody teenagers.
Steve has recently acquired a new bat and seems to be getting on very well with it. It wouldn’t surprise me if he is taking to bed and cuddling it at night. One straight drive went for a glorious 6. It looked effortless but was surpassed by a later maximum, that hit the apex of the clubhouse roof. That’s a fair old distance, and uphill.
In what seems to be a disturbing tradition for 3rd team batsmen, Steve had a charge down the track and swung wildly, to be clean bowled for 49.
Even worse though was Nigel, who chopped one onto his stumps when he was three short of a century.
Evan H had looked in good form, hitting 4 nice boundaries in a rapid fire 22 before being caught.
Olly P scored at a run a ball and Guttsy was unbeaten on 5 with him.
An impressive 264 for 6.
We knew though that Ightham could bat well, and we had to keep it tight.
Damps and Peter T did just that.
Peter struck first, clean bowling a very good batsman. Damps was next, bowling a young big hitter.
Peter finished 6-0-32-1
Damps bowled through, no mean feat on a hot day. 9-0-27-1.
Guttsy was next up the slope. A few short balls were punished early on, but once he found his length the oppo struggled to get him away. 7-1-28-1
Nathan S replaced Damps. He seems to have shortened his run up and gained more control. He struck with his first ball, ending the best partnership. Caught behind by Olly P.
He got another wicket when a full bunger was hit to Damps at mid off. 6-0-25-2
Patton handed over keeping duties to his captain and bowled 4 good overs. When he gets his length right he is very dangerous. One spun back in and clean bowled a new batsman. “Classic off spin” was the comment from the keeper. The departing batsman muttered, “the bastards told me he was bowling leg spin”. He later got another clean bowled. 4-1-13-2
Tom G was next down the slope and looked sharp as usual. He finished 45-2-11-1
Evan H got three overs at the end and bowled very well. He would have had a wicket with a better keeper, when a sharp inside edge left your match reporter moving in the wrong direction. 3-1-7-0.
The fielding was generally outstanding. Even the skipper looked vaguely competent for once. Standouts were Evan, Nathan who kept running the whole innings, and a remarkably sprightly Nigel Baker who belied his years, and the hard ground, and kept throwing himself around.
The opposition finished 151 for 8. A comfortable win and a tremendous turnaround from the stuffing we got earlier on.
Huge thanks to Tim Croom who umpired for us all match. Diolch.