It’s a marathon not a sprint, but it really helps if you know how to hold a bat as rustiness and down right foolishness halted the charge to the Premier Division. Inclement weather prior to the start made the winning the toss an important factor in the seasons first competitive game at home against Great Waltham but IB called wrong (tails never fails) and we were put in. White ran out Tex, and Gilmore just ran himself out in a madcap start to the game. Henson and Williams top scored with 24 and others contributed but we never looked like we were going to put a decent partnership together. 135 was all we had to play with.
Waltham started well but Gilmore and Law bowled some top swing with the latter dumbfounding the batsmen at times. Law had unbelievable tekkers and struck twice in two balls to send Rayleigh into ecstasy. Duffus lowered the tone declaring his affection for Mrs Gilmore but Matt rose above his antics and did his talking with the ball taking 3 quick fire wickets and suddenly we were back in it. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, with White and Tex dropping half chances allowing Waltham to pass our total at a snails pace.
Only 3 points picked up and a lot to contemplate especially on the batting front which is surely where we lost this game. Davis led the chorus of D:ream’s ‘Things can only get better’ in the changing room knowing that Cook and Walsh will return and that Imran is out there somewhere, this could still be our season.
Duffus ended up with egg on his face, believing the umpires had taken offense to his abuse of Mrs Gilmore so apologised and grovelled to the league umpire in an attempt to ensure he didn’t receive a 3 match ban for his potty language – cracking wind up which had the whole pavilion in hysterics.