Saturday 18th May 1st XI Match report
With club Captain Larkin still on call it was down to Balders to don the captains armband and try to win an important toss. With a green top and plenty of moisture in the pitch the queens head staring up off muddy’s 50p spelt 40 overs first up in the field for the Bidborough boys. Zemory opened from the pavilion end, inducing a thick outside edge from Drulings tentative prod from his first delivery in league cricket for Bidborough……it flew quickly to a diving hobbit at gully who couldn’t quite cling on to what would have been a great catch. Nevertheless it was a great first over and sign of things to come as Zem bowled unchanged taking 2-20 cleaning up Muddy and pinning Ollie Crease in front for 0. The wise old sage that is Mitch opened from the other end bowling six excellent overs taking 1-21, beautifully bowling Owen Browne with a trade mark cutter. At 31 for 3 things were going according to plan. Whilst wickets tumbled around him Durling batted with style and aggression to keep Speldhurst ticking along. He and Mike Jeffries added 50 before the superb Tim Johnson had the latter caught on the drive by the skipper. The burglar was then introduced where he did what he does best….taking wickets! Again in trade mark fashion he struck in his first over removing Pannel for a duck. 2 runs later the big wicket fell….Tim Johnson flighted a beauty which dipped and turned and beat the charge of Durling to clean him up for what was an attractive 62. This meant Johno bowled his 9 overs for just 24 runs taking two big wickets. That left Eamo and a returning Dale to run through the tail to leave Speldhurst 124 all out in just under 39 overs. Eamo finished with figures of 4-21 and Dale chipped in with 1-31. Great effort all round and we all went to tea feeling pretty pleased.
After a hearty tea Sambo and Charlie set about chasing down what potentially could have been a tricky target. When Charlie went LBW to Jeffries with just 5 on the board things were looking a little wobbly but Sam decided that if it was in his half it was going to go and he and Jack added a further 35 before Jack got a leg stump in swinging Yorker to leave us 40 for 2. Hobbit entered the arena and promptly made batting look easy! After sniffing a Ollie Crees bouncer he set about the attack playing exquisite cover drives and cuts that were both attractive and effective. Sam got a grubber from Crees with the score on 78 but he had scored a very useful 29 by this stage and the winners tape could be seen up ahead. The skipper joined Hobbit and the pair added 30 (well hobbit did) before he tried one big shot too many and was cleaned up by Owen Browne for what was a match winning 45. Mitch came out to the middle in a hurry smashing 2 sixes and a 4 to end the game at a canter. 126-4 and job done. 20 points in the bag and the league is up and running!