Glorious June weather for this one, in the form of clouds and blustery wind, ruining our new sight screen by bending the poles, a great start! Nob had won the toss and elected to bat, with Issey, Mutton and Banny all making their first first team appearances of the year, along with Sam Bowen and Pidge returning. Drew, Tommy, Baron, RK and Cheesey all missing on this occasion.
[ ] Issey and Sam took the new ball, starting nicely with nothing major to report until the last ball of the 6th over, Issey cut to gully, stopped well by Sam but splitting his finger open in the process. His time off the field saw JFH come on early, who bowled well for 2, but the 3rd was one too many, and the Rayleigh opener took 3 big sixes off it to catapult their score along. Sammy returned and immediately took the ball back, unable to watch any more JFH pies be thrown, while Henge, who was seeing multiples of everything after his Oakhouse/popworld stint saw him appear rather late, came on to replace Issey after a good spell. Unable to break the opening partnership, Nob turned to Banny to see if he could, and he did, getting the aggressive Rayleigh opener to top edge to pidge at backward Square, who nestled it safely in his wings. Banny then decided enough was enough, bowled two shoulder high no balls which forced him from the attack, and skip decided he best have a go, with brother JFH returning at the other end. For a period the two bowled well, not wanting to be outdone by the other, and wickets came, Sam taking a comfortable catch for anyone with a full compliment of healthy fingers of Nob, before Nob snaffled one off JFH. Rayleigh countered well, Nobby bringing back Sam and Henge to try and rip out a couple more but only 1 fell to Henge, with a further run out by JFH and Rayleigh went on well. Issey returned with no joy, Nob tried as well but after 2 good overs got smashed in his 3rd (outdoing the earlier total off his brothers total!) So JFH asked to bowl the last over, while getting a stumping for Nick and keeping it reasonably tight, but 268 was a very good total, despite generally good fielding effort.
Tea Rating: A Totham only afford, couple of good sandwich options and some Pizzas, not a bad effort. 7/10
Nob and Henge took on opening duties, looking comfortable enough against the opening bowlers before Joe completely missed a straight one, Nick and Rob built well before both went quickly to the other opener, Nick bowled and Rob somehow finding the man at point. At 77-3 it was going to take something special, Melman couldn't recreate his heroics of the week before, despite hitting his first balk for 6, he became 1 of 5 victims for Bryant of Rayleigh being bowled, soon followed by Pook holing out to cow. From here, a proper collapse was pretty enviable, Pidge, Banny and JFH all bowled, Issey did well to stick with Mutton to nearly find a batting point before he too holed out, Sam not able to take a bat.
In the end a really poor result against a side down with us, conceded a few too many without every taking enough wickets, and never truly being in the chase, the Baddows appear in the fixture list for the next two weeks, and with Stock and Aythorpe before the first half of the season draws out, at least 2 wins are realistically needed to give us a fighting chance going on
