The weather was the ultimate winner of this fixture as the 1's got a frustrating draw at Old Brentwoods.
In the first time game of the season, the hosts won the toss and, surprisingly, decided to have a bat, knowing that there would be a rain interruption early in their innings. This happened after two balls had been bowled, and a mad rush ensued to get the rollers and covers on. The downpour led to the first of four stoppages, with the players having to watch the golf in the bar for nearly two hours. The game resumed with the overs ratio changed from 50/45 to 36/32 and an even game was still looking likely. The second shower saw the game reduced further to 28/26, with Old Brentwoods deciding to go at the game as a 20/20 slogfest.
Jack Plom and Sam Bear bowled the first 19 over between them and removed five of the top six batsmen (Jack 3-39, Sam 2-34). Spinners Lesiba Ngoepe and George Ballington then took over, and despite conceding runs at a tad under nine an over, had the desired effect of removing the remaining five wickets, with the bonus of bowling them out inside the 28 overs allocated for 139 (George 3-18, Lezza 2-40). We managed to get an extra over back, so a target of 140 in 27 overs was set.
A shortened tea break was scuppered by a third deluge, reducing the maximum number of overs we could receive to 23. The opening stance was bright before Tom Austin nicked one to the wicketkeeper, having scored 10. Lezza never looked comfortable and swung across the line to be bowled on 15. at 59-2 and George carrying on from where he left off last week, we were handily placed to get to our target, but with less than 10 overs to go, the sky opened up for a fourth time. With both teams desperately wanting a result, we went out for a fifth time, losing a further three overs. The target was 58 runs in 46 balls with virtually all their fielders sent to cover the boundaries. "Linford" was run out going for a second run having scored 48, and Jamie Walton was dismissed in the same way for 20 shortly after. Putting Sam up the order didn't work as he faced just two balls, so it was down to Jack and Dave Hickey to try and get us over the line. They fell agonisingly short, as needing 14 runs from the final over for victory, 13 were scored to see the game finish as a draw, with Jack unbeaten on 32 whilst Dave was still there on seven.
The result sees us remain second in the league. Back to The Shen next week for a match against third placed Woodford Wells, with the camera being put to use again.
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