With the Great Totham church fete borrowing our home ground this week, the 2s made their annual pilgrimage to the second home of cricket, and the 3’s spiritual home, Wickham Bishops.
A lot of work has been done on the ground which looked in great condition, Jimmy Hay had promised us a great tea - the stage was set for a good day of cricket. The visitors won the toss and asked us to bat, which seemed a blessing in disguise especially given it was 25degrees. The opening few overs seemed to vindicate our opponents decision to bowl first, with Totham losing their top 3 with just 22 on the board, unfortunately for them Foxy was playing. He looked imperious from the beginning, cover driving or flicking over mid wicket anything over pitched, building a near chance-less innings which was a pleasure to watch. He finished on 109, with only Matt McDonald (24) and Nob (20) making other contributions. In truth the pitch was inconsistent, our score of 218 was over par.
Teas - Top marks for effort for Jimmy. The reverend’s mum even said he missed Love Island last night as he was making sandwiches. I’d like to have seen the full budget spent rather than just over half as I only managed to get 4 cocktail sausages not my usual 10, however, any man who bring a carrier bag of beers for his teammates to drink after the game deserves a 9/10.
We had been in this position a few times this year, with runs on the board, but usually we gift the opposition easy runs first up. Not today. Matt started with his customary head-high no ball, and an equally frequent drop catch behind the stumps in his first over, but it was George Davis who made the breakthrough, bowling the dangerous Royce in his first over. The first 10 overs yielded just 27 runs, throw a Matt McDonald run out in to the equation and we had made a great start. Reverend Hay came in to the attack from one end bowling some absolute beauties, but it was his filthiest ball of the day which got the wicket, pitching off of the cut strip and sliced into the hands of Ryan. Enter John Chadwick for his first Saturday bowl of the year. 5 overs of line and length for not many runs were followed by 5 more overs of line and length, with 4 wickets as reward. Tactical genius from the captain, or no other options to turn to? We’ll never know. Matt, George and Lewis helped John clean up the tail and Totham had their first win for 7 weeks!
Star Man - Foxy
