Early season expectation was again dashed with a second successive defeat, again at home, this time to Goresbrook. Winning the toss, Captain Jamie Walton had no hesitation in deciding to bat on a day where the thermometer was expected to pass 30 degrees. The pitch looked ready for a batfest, with a minimum 1st innings score of 250 not within the realms of impossibility.
Opening pair Theo Robinson and Sam Bear look to be positive and put on 40 for the first wicket before Sam presented them with a catch. Theo was then dropped on 10 and 21 in a 58-run partnership with Sarthak Kohli, who was given out to a half-hearted appeal from their wicketkeeper for a catch behind, which was given. Will Howard fell four overs later and Goresbrook started to gain a stranglehold on the game.
Theo was the stand-out batsman throughout the innings as other batsmen seemed to struggle and he was unlucky to clip a ball straight to mid-on having scored 95. His was the fifth wicket to fall with the score on 165, and from then on in, we could only score at three an over. Another middle order batting collapse meant the lower order had to try and make a defendable score. A ninth wicket partnership between Ollie Pope and Alex Rickenbach of 42 saw us limp pass 200 before our last two wickets fell on 225. Given that we had scored 98 in the first 16 overs, you had to feel disappointed with the total and the overall batting.
Having conceded 43 extras in our first game against Springfield, there was a slight improvement last week with only 28 given away. Unfortunately in this game, extras was the top scorer in their innings as we gave away a whopping 48 runs as they breezed past our total with almost six overs remaining, seven wickets down.
Dan Green was again our outstanding bowler, taking 2-25. Caleb Seleka took 2-46 and Tom Arnold 1-33 were our other bowlers of note in a game where both batting and bowling were disappointing. The early season momentum has well and truly disappeared and our next game (away to Ilford) really needs to get us back on track.
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