The 2’s first home game of the season, like last season, was greeted with rain. Putting the covers on at 10am did little to help matters, but the most important thing was to get the game on.
Needless to say Nob lost the toss and the hosts were invited to bat on a sticky, slow wicket offering absolutely nothing for the batsmen and everything for the bowlers. Stu who has clearly lost a number of his senses since turning 40, including touch and hearing, managed to survive one caught behind which everyone in the village heard, only to perish in the next over. This brought around a flurry of wickets with Cailean, Dan Allen and Mutley unable to get going with Dicko showing early promises before being another to try to clear the pavilion on a pitch where that just wasn’t possible. DQ played a nice cameo including some excellent boundaries and Jonny Hewer threw the bat at the end to get us up to an under par 148 from a reduced allocation of 41 overs. Nob batted all the way through for 60-odd which was in truth a horribly slow innings consisting of play and misses, mis-times shots and picking out fielders time after time.
Stu did teas today, the home made flapjack was superb but the excess cheese and pickle sandwiches seemed unnecessary. 7/10
We emerged after tea knowing that we needed early wickets to give us a chance. The sun was shining, the wicket had dried out and the toss was looking more crucial as time went on. Stroker Ridge bowled excellently in his first two overs only to fall apart in his next two, George Davis bowled pretty well and claimed a wicket courtesy of a good catch from DQ, but it was our fielding that let us down. Too many times the ball went through us and after last weeks excellent display in the field this was a disappointment. Jonny Hewer bowled 8 very good overs, claiming two (should have been three) wickets before the away side cruised to victory with 14 overs to spare.
Losing the toss was a big blow, but we were not good enough all round. We have a few players returning next week so a big improvement is expected.
