So this was to be a major clash of title contenders, Final CC were second to Redbourn and also disputing their bonus points which would actually have put them top. Both Redbourn and Final had both played two more games than us though. Whatever the points situation, we had to win. We had a strong side out after a little last minute potential dropout that wasn’t.
Anyway on the match report; I won the toss again and invited the opposition to bat. Spence and Haggis Mike opened the bowling and both bowled superbly. What a change a match can make for Mike, who’s bowling was much more like we all know he can bowl. According to Graeme, they should have been 0 for 1 after the first ball, when his impassioned appeal for a stumping was ignored by their caged umpire, who no doubt wasn’t actually watching. Well the first wicket proper did not take long to fall, when one of their openers clipped nicely to square leg only for the ball to come back neatly to Graeme who completed the run out. Graeme then surpassed himself again with a superb caught behind. In addition to losing wickets, they were not scoring runs, so after the opening spell from Tim & Mike of 6 overs, they only 40 odd and this had already included nearly 20 from their best batsman. I then finally removed their remaining opener who had struggled to a grand total of 7, when he clipped a full toss straight back to me. The last three wickets fell to run outs in a bit of a blur, a mix of pressure from good bowling and fielding but also some appalling running. This left them 70 all out, with nearly 3 overs to bowl. Poor Murph didn’t even get a bowl after his heroics last week.
Given Murph’s lack of a bowl, he opened with Graeme and we made good progress towards our low target, Graeme in particular batting well, retiring after only the 4th over. Mike H then joined Murph and got us to within 5 of our target when he went for flat bat tennis shot eyeing up the 10 zone, sadly it just caught the top net and fell gently back to the bowler. Next ball and they were on a hat-trick when Murph wandered across his stumps, as he is wont, but missed and lost his leg stump. This left me to call on Neil to quickly pull on his pads to see us home to victory in the 8th over. The match was all over in 45 minutes, quiet a thrashing given we were expecting a tough game.
Man of the match goes to Graeme for 25 runs, a catch behind, a stumping that nearly was and three assists on the run outs, although both Spence and Mike H bowled very well too.
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