Team: Luke Keeley (capt), Steven Lynch, Jai Patel, Charles King, Kelly Castle, David Cox, Ben Eagles, Charlie May, Neil Kelly, Francesca King, Chris Hall
Rankins won by 4 wickets.
Our second league game of the season saw us at the picturesque setting of Rankins’ Stambridge ground. Winning the toss, Luke chose to bat first and get runs on the board. A lively 25 run opening stand in 4 overs between Luke and Steven was broken when Steven was bowled for 11. Luke again held the innings together quite brilliantly for 27 (ret), and some lusty blows from Charles King (10) pushed the score along. From then on, our middle order found scoring difficult against a disciplined home attack and we closed on 92–5, probably 20 runs short of a challenging target on some short boundaries.
Rankins’ reply centred around a breezy 28 (ret) off 16 balls from their no. 3 who moved their score to 50 inside the 8th over. Two wickets in two balls from Steven (2 – 16 from 4 overs) caused the home side some jitters, and we continued to chip away, with 3 more wickets falling before the home side reached their target with 6 wickets down in the 18th over.
Despite not posting a big target, our fielding performance was almost enough to win the game. Steven, David and Luke all held sharp catches, and not much got through in the field. Thanks to Jai who filled in well as keeper conceding only the 1 bye and taking a superb catch standing up, and Charles who fronted up well to open the bowling with 1 for 7 from his first 3 overs. Again, Luke Keeley deserves great credit for leading the side with 27 runs and a spell of 1–17 from 4 overs.