at Chalkwell Park, May 27th 2013
Team: Adam Bailey, Joe Barnett, Jack Hadlow, Tom King†, Tom Lopez, Kian Norton-Reeves, Craig Smith*, James Taylor, David Watts.
Once again 10 players. Does the manager know we are allowed 11?
This was a Cup round against Westcliff, always a strong side, and having just scraped together enough players to get a side out it was going to be a challenge.
Craig won the toss and chose to bowl, opening with himself and Tom Lopez. Tom King was behind the stumps as Joe had an injured finger. I am sure Craig was disappointed with his form as he did not bowl as well as he has recently, however one must bare in mind that Westcliff have some good batters. Tom L was as good as normal but Westcliff were quickly into their stride and scoring freely.
Aaron and Jack were the first change bowlers and were unable to restrict Westcliff to any great extent. Some clean hitting combined with good running and pressurising the fielders meant that Westcliff were scoring at more than 10 runs an over. David, Kian and Adam were also used but no-one really held them back as they scored 190-1 with 3 batters retiring not out. The highlight of the first innings was David taking a catch off Craig’s bowling to dismiss the Westcliff captain. If you are only going to get one person out the opposition captain is the one to get.
Clearly we were up against it in the second innings. Craig and Joe opened and faced some good bowling from Westcliff’s attack. Unfortunately the attack was too good for us and we lost both openers and Adam in the first 3 overs. There followed a regular turnover of batters with the exception of David who stayed in and belted a few boundaries. David was eventually bowled for 19 but for a while there was hope. The rest of the batters were not up to the task and eventually we subsided to 56 all out in the 15th over.
At least we can now concentrate on the League.
Westcliff showed us a good lesson in how to play – attack well with bat and ball, field energetically and don’t give the opposition easy runs.
An honourable mention of James Taylor. Having turned up at training on Saturday never having played cricket before he agreed to play in his first representative match today – a good effort and an attitude to be encouraged.
Next week we do not have a League fixture . We may get a friendly otherwise it is Sunday 9th June against Rayleigh Fairview.