With last week's victory under their belts the 4s were keen to continue their current form against Harvel 3s. Availability was high and the sun was shining, what could possibly go wrong.

We lost the toss and the opposition elected to do the sensible thing on a hot day and bat. We started off down the hill with some accurate bowling from Tom Gagg down the hill and Jacob West up. There were a couple of wayward balls from Westy but this was part of the plan. Westy bowled one of their openers out for a duck in his first over. With both Tom and Westy looking in form we were looking ok. Westy could have had another wicket but unfortunately the ball came a little too quickly to Owen and it jumped out of his hands and landed on the floor. This unsettled Westy a little and they started to tune into what Westy had to offer. With a bit of slack fielding from the ageing skipper they started to find the boundary. Tom kept them very quiet 5-1-15-0. Westy 5-1-30-1.
Next up was Jack (down the hill) and Ludders (up). Jack continued his form from last week with some very efficient bowling. 7-0-32-0. Ludders bowling up the hill was in form bowling a tempting ball which landed straight into Tom's hands. This appeared to surprise Ludders, bowling a couple of wayward balls straight after. Ludders (despite the best efforts of the skipper to keep him bowling) decided to remove him self after 3 overs to calm himself down. Hopefully next time he will remain calm and take more wickets. 3-0-19-1. Henry and Ted Gagg came on and was looking good. At this stage we were in good shape. Henry and Ted continued the pressure with both Henry and Ted taking out 2 of their Batsmen. George Gagg bowled well and took a wicket showing his kids how it is done. This was when Harvel brought on their IPL players. Despite our best efforts by bringing our openers back on they still managed 84 off 32 balls between the pair of them. This was quite a surprise to both us and Harvel, as they were new players to Harvel. All of a sudden Harvel had 222. Only 6 overs previously, they were on 132. We knew we had a bit of a task on our hands going into bat.

The heat had given us a beating as did Harvel's IPL players. This had brought the mood down so the team was told the only target they had to beat was all out for 19. As long as that was achieved we would beat the Sunday captain's worst score. Owen opened with Henry and both player's starting quickly. Easily getting to the required 19. Unfortunately Henry sent one up into the hand of one of their fielders. Ludders was up next. Looking good initially, but as he started to settle in he chipped one up for another catch. Jack Cutts came on and was working well with Owen. Unfortunately before Jack had settled in, they managed to sneak a ball on to his wicket. Leo was up next. At this stage Owen was looking good and still scoring well. He decided that he would calm down a little and try and get a big score. Unfortunately the next ball was his downfall, scoring 35. To top it off, on his way back to the pavilion he slipped over and dislocated his shoulder*, fortunately he was able to pop it back in but was in an awful lot of pain. Hopefully he'll be ok for our next match. Jack V came on and started extremely well. Sadly Leo didn't do as well and quickly returned to the pavilion. Westy came in and was looking good; unfortunately he too appears to enjoy giving the opposition catching practice. Jack on the other hand was composed and could handle everything they decided to bowl at him. Tom came on for Westy. He also joined the catching practice and was replaced by Tanky. Jack continued to score and the target of 223 was starting to look in reach. With 6 overs left they decided to see if they could actually achieve a miracle. Jake was on form so the main aim was to keep rotating strike. This worked for a while but Tanky was bowled out for 10. Ted was up next but they brought their very fast opener back on which proved a little to much for Ted. George Gagg was up. Jack continued to score and George was doing some great running but sadly we didn't quite make it to their score. However we achieved a great total of 187. With Jack V scoring a massive 87 not out.

Overall Harvel were a very good team and despite our best efforts, their IPL players took the the game away from us. The game was played with good spirit and was extremely enjoyable despite the temperatures.

*This may or may not have happened.