A beautiful day for cricket saw the mighty 3s host Chignal for their first home game of the season. Captain Tim, keen for a victory, won the toss & forced his men to field first on the hottest day of the year.
James & Issey (in disguise with his bleached hair) opened the bowling & had the Chignal openers in some trouble, as they swung their bats & the edges avoided fielders. Eventully Issey tempted the opener with a short ball outside off stump & it was well taken by Jacob at point . Next over from James, a ball moving to leg , a big swing from the batsman, a top edge, the ball went sky-high, Issey ran backwards, the ball swirled & Issey stuck out one hand to take a catch that will not be bettered this season.
High fives all round & Chignal were in trouble. A few overs later, with Chignal's batsmen looking a bit more confident, Issey struck again as he found an edge & Tim took his first catch of the day.
The opening bowlers came off, having done a great job, to be replaced by Tom & Jacob. Both bowled tightly to start with, but the odd poor length cropped up & the Chignal batsman gained the upper hand. At drinks, Totham had taken a number of wickets, but Chignal were back in the game. Tim has a moment of brilliance & asks Harry to bowl. With Tom & Harry bowling so well the run rate slowed considerably & the batsmen were under pressure. Tom & Tim combined for a catch & a stumping, whilst Harry was helped by a superb catch by John Dundas to remove the high scoring batsman. Harry then took charge, by bowling out 2 Chignal players & combining with John Dundas for another.
After 30 overs the innings was done & 116 looked a low target to chase.
Tim had provided tea, which was well received by all. John & John opened the batting & the Chignal bowlers bowled accurately for the first few overs. But, they began to stray a little bit after a while, until John Dundas was bowled with the score on 14. From then on DQ & John defended the good balls & blasted the bad balls. John had a stroke of luck when a very difficult chance was dropped, but, apart from that, there was no danger for either DQ or John. The only issue was the poor quality of attempted sledging from the Chignal slip cordon area, which brought a smile to everyone's face, including the other Chignal players.
Both DQ & John reached 50s, with a century partnership & Dan only just making it after John miscounted the score & almost cost Dan his glory.
Tim was delighted with the result, as were all the team. First victory & looking forward to Rainham next week.
