The match report returns after a short hiatus with news of a fantastic victory for the 1's away to Old Brentwoods.
With both teams winning their previous games (Old Brentwoods first of the season), it would be interesting to see how the toss panned out. It was won by Jamie Walton who decided to put the opposition in on a day where the temperature was due to hit 30 degrees! He must be a weatherman in his spare time, given that we never quite reached that height, with a light breeze passing around the ground.
The first chance of the match came in the sixth over as a very sharp catch was just missed by Tom Arnold off his own bowling. This did have an impact as the batsman top scored with 125. The first breakthrough came in the 12th over as Caleb Seleka took his first wicket with the score on 53. Another 42 runs were added before Sarthak Kohli took aa wicket with his first delivery, trapping a bemused batsman lbw. When the third wicket fell in the 30th over to Tom Ballington, there seemed to be an element of control in our bowling, despite the boundaries being shorter than normal. However, in a 50-over game, you're told that you should look to double your score in the final 20 overs, and that is what our hosts did, reaching an imposing 269-6 in their 50 overs. What made it worse was the constant chuntering of their scorer, whose wails and screeches throughout the innings left my earholes severely damaged. She could do this whilst having technical difficulties with her scoring device, something Dave Hickey mentioned to her as the teams left the field for tea.
A solid partnership of 76 in 13 overs between Tom Ballington and Theo Robinson gave us a good platform to work from before both fell in the space of 11 balls. Tom Arnold was unlucky to see the ball roll onto his stumps whilst looking comfortable with the score on 123 at the halfway stage. Sarthak was going about his business, holding his end and punishing the bad balls. With us scoring at over five an over, keeping our wickets should have seen us coasting home, but a middle-order collapse saw us lose four wickets for 25 runs in seven overs. Their highlight was Dave being caught in the slips first ball, which had their scorer give the loudest screech of the day, heard by players in the dressing rooms some 60+ yards away! His was the second of the four wickets to fall, but we were still on track despite running out of wickets. Fortunately, they also managed to drop Sarthak when he was on 58.
After 41 overs, we still needed 61 runs from the final 24 balls, with Old Brentwoods deciding that we weren't going to get any extra overs. It was at over 42 where the game changed, with Caleb hitting two sixes and Sarthak hitting two fours to take the score to 230. Over 43 went for 13 and over 44 went for 15, during which Sathak reached his century from 97 balls. Needing 12 from the last over, the fourth ball saw the boy run two to put the sides level. The penultimate ball was smashed back past the bowler to the boundary to give us a remarkable victory by three wickets, with Sarthak on 119 and Caleb on 38, the pair putting on 102 for the eighth wicket. There were joyous celebrations as our players ran onto the pitch with Dave (probably) making the loudest noise of all, and a very muted scorer alongside me!
The win moves us up to sixth, along with a cluster of clubs chasing the top two. Ilford, who are currently second, come to The Shen in our next game. Momentum...............................................
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