Wooburn wobbles but steady ship to defeat Ricky

After only winning 6 out of 20 coin tosses last year, I miraculously manged to win my second in a row against Wooburn Narkovians on Saturday. After deciding to bowl first last week, I thought I would see how the team responded to setting a target this week.

Opener, Rory ‘off the porch’ Bennett had a good night’s sleep and reaped the benefits, combining with Murtaza Shehabi to do an excellent job of seeing off the new ball. Shehabi led the way, only to be caught behind for 27 off the first ball from the first change bowler. An opening partnership of 49. Rory Bennett continued to grow in confidence as his innings progressed, getting used to the subtleties of batting on a pre-May cricket pitch in England. After putting together solid partnerships with Kasser Abbas and Ed Manning, he was joined by Mark ‘old father time’ Berwick, who turned back the clock to smash 4 boundaries as his first 4 scoring shots on his way to 30 not out and a 58 run partnership in 9 overs. Bennett narrowly missed out on carrying his bat, being caught off the last ball of the innings for 63.

165/4 off 40 overs was probably a little light, but the top order getting good time in the middle will hopefully hold us in good stead for the rest of the season.

Wooburn started off with a hiss and roar, racing to 29 off the first 4 overs before Tommy ‘gun’ Watson struck with a rising short ball that was top edged to mid-on. The wicket spurred on Tom Watson, who huffed and puffed his way through 7 overs in a row, taking 3 more wickets. Combined with Phil Riddleston they reduced Wooburn to 57/5. However, as Tom turned to the magic spray to stop him from seizing up, Ricky just couldn’t quite get that one more wicket to stay on top. Wooburn’s 6th wicket partnership batted sensibly to compile 96 runs, constantly avoiding Marc Robinson’s seaming deliveries that somehow managed to miss the edge of the bat and the wickets. A late wicket to ‘The Riddler’ gave him impressive figures of 8-2-12-2, to go with Tom ‘the tin man’ Watson’s 8-0-32-4.

While it would have been great to notch up an early victory in the pre-season, the team had two good hit outs against opposition in higher grades and more than competed. I believe the outlook for the season looks bright and have no reason to believe why we can’t fight for promotion. Onwards and upwards! Huzzah!