1sts end season on a high too!
Tuesday 28th August 2007
What a weekend - quite simply a fantastic end to the season. We'll have to start with the 2nds who snatched promotion with a thumping and thoroughly deserved win away to Blundeston. Having read the oppositions rather bitter match report, it would be easy to respond in kind with a smug and gloating one but I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to focus on what was a fantastic team performance.
It was always going to be an important toss to win which meant of course as with most of the rest of the season we duly lost it. Never an easy pitch to play fluent strokes, what impressed was the teams efforts as a unit to graft and for many play innings that were uncharacteristic. Rob to be fair was undone by a cracking delivery as was Akka whilst Krusty batted manfully on a pitch that didnt serve his style of strokeplay. Moots did his best to avoid the pitch completely by going arial and for a man who has hardly batted this season, his cameo was highly entertaining. The key innings though belonged to Jeet and Spanky. Jeet, who when available has been a revelation with the bat played an unbelievably good innings of 44 - comfortably the highest in the game whilst Spanky, who is another whose batting has really come of age this summer played a truly horrible innings by his own admission but stuck it out despite playing and missing around 30 odd times to cobble together 34.
In an effort to get to 160 wickets were always likely to fall - the skipper still troubled by his broken hand failing and with Tom also going in the quest for quick runs Adam and Jez scrambled the last over and prevented any more bowling points, and whilst 148-8 was less than we would have liked we always felt that it was the sort of score on that pitch that would give us a chance.
As it turned out, it was plenty big enough. Quite simply, all season our strength has been our bowling and fielding and it was the same on Saturday. Yes, the opposition might whinge about Moots and Rob - but as all season it was Jez who took early wickets as he has done all season - a plumb lbw and some quality catches taking him up to 27 league wickets for the season. At the other end, Moots did what Moots does - simply bowl nice and straight and watch the batsman play a series of ridiculous shots to him. There was also time for Rob to clean up a rather clueless tail and finish the game in high style. Blundeston only managed to bat 18 and a bit overs - we gutsed it out for 45 overs.
So what was the difference between the teams? We showed the patience and dilligence needed to score runs on that pitch and get a competitive score. We took 6 excellent catches - there were drops in our innings but above all, I think we wanted it more.
In order to get promoted, the 2nds in their last 4 games had to beat the 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed teams in order to go up. We managed to do this, twice beating the opposition by more than a 100 runs and so thoroughly deserve our promotion.
A small word for Blundeston who did bowl well - if you're going to give batsman constant verbal abuse for 45 overs, then you better make sure you bat a heck of a lot better than 39 all out in a promotion decider. Also, to those teams in Division 10 who wished us luck in beating Blundeston on Saturday; thanks for your support. Well done all of those who have represented the 2nds this season and heres looking forward to Division 9 next season.
The 1sts ended the season on a high with an excellent win at home to Topcroft A. Batting 1st, the innings of 207-5 was based around another boundary laden innings from Cooky with his 2nd century of the season and contributions from Mike, Barney and Edgey. Bowling wise, it was excellent team performance with the wickets shared around. Edgey made early breakthroughs, Stu continued his excellent run of form whilst Barney not only took his 1st wickets of the season but Oaky again showed that his inimitable style of bowling can take wickets in most Leagues. Special mention should also go to Matt, who on his 1st team debut at the age of 14 not only got a wicket but also took 3 super catches - most definately a sign of the youth talent we now have at the club and a positive augur for the ensuing seasons.
So after a real up and down season, the 1sts finish a creditable 4th in the League. Availability problems have meant the team has never been settled but a run of 4 consecutive wins to finish the season has shown the strength and depth of the batting and should hopefully lead to another successful season next year.
I'll gloss over the 2 Sunday results - availability meant the 1sts were severely understrength against Chapelfield but battled hard with the young players certainly not letting themselves down whilsts the 2nd team continue to take positives from every game they play. Whilst the Saturday season has now come to a close, the Sunday season continues for another couple of weeks so keep an eye for more updates.
Well done again the 2nds.