Canvey Island 145 for 8
Rayleigh 69 all out
Canvey Island won by 76 runs.
Team: Charlie W, Nathan B, Connor B, Ben E, James H*, Ben L†, Ben C, Chris M, George C, Chris H, Louise H.
The penultimate League game of the season and things should be running smoothly by now. James H was captain for this week and had asked for the team list in advance. Having got the final version from Mike Sullivan only the night before I passed it to James to consider his batting and bowling attack. When all 11 players turned up there was only the one change so James had a more accurate list than Nathan the week before.
Canvey Island won the toss and chose to bat first. The first ball delivered by our attack was a wide which made their decision look good. The second was a wicket which caused judgement to be reserved. Generally our bowling was slightly better but still needed work. Several of the bowlers either don’t get their bowling arms higher than their shoulder and/or don’t use the non-bowling side to help with accuracy and power.
There was some good bowling from Louise (3–0–12–0), Chris H (3–0–10–2), Nathan (2–0–7–0) and James (2–0–13–1) with Chris H taking 2 wickets as well. Ben E took a couple of wickets but was a little expensive giving away 26 runs in his 3 overs.
Canvey batted well punishing balls that were there to be hit and scoring boundaries on a frequent basis. Our fielding improved during the game and, although 145 is a high score, in a slightly perverse way the score was high because our bowling had improved enough for the batters to hit it. Now we need to bowl a little fuller to reduce the cross-batted pull to long leg.
At half time the team recognised that the score was quite daunting and that we needed good running as well as some boundaries to win. Nathan and Charlie opened the batting and Nathan called a quick single from the first ball, which he got. Unfortunately he then tried to pull a highish full toss, got a top edge and was caught. 1 wicket down for 1 run. Charlie soon followed him with the first LBW dismissal I have seen this season. 2 down in as many overs did not bode well.
However Connor B batted well, eventually having having to retire on 25. The rest of the team was less successful with a combination of some good catching by Canvey, straight bowling and, possibly, some self imposed pressure meaning wickets went with no other individual getting to double figures and the team total of 69 being lower than our recent efforts. One more League game to go, against SOSEMT on the 25th.