Old Cholms chow down on Ricky

After a rampant 2-0 start to the season and success with the toss, the 1s were put into bat on what seemed to be a moist and spongy track. The lingering forecast of drizzle and rain, combined with sporadic winds, presented the perfect English imperfect conditions for Rory Bennett and Murtaza Shehabi (Taz) to start proceedings... (Notice the inspiration from Chris Horne's column couple of weeks ago!)

After a 'rorying' first ball scare and some blistering shots from both ends - Taz spooned a pull to slip, Ajay-married-malt decided to (give it a) go, Bennett's giant stride forward didn't benefit from any doubt, Vish-what-a-player floundered a start alas, ... 'running out' of words to do any justice to Kas ! ... Ricky were wobbling at 70/5!

The Keep Calm & Play On duo - Captain Marty Jaynes & Cool-Ed Manning, steadied the ship with a solid stand of 44. The not-so-Cool thigh-before-wicket, and a marKedly-Funged up hiccup, brought the OZ Ali to support Captain Wizard...and the two added 47 in the last 7 to finish with a seemingly defendable 191!

The final word of the innings is reserved for yet another dose of a truly special 77*, leading from the front, as the skipper acted on instincts and promoted himself to #5, and backed it up with a 'mighty' (read as 'Marty') innings. Back to back unbeaten half centuries puts Marty's season's average beyond my computing skills ;)

Ok, now drawing attention to the post-tea session - where the rapidly deteriorating weather conditions still outshone the ordeal of RCC 1st's, hungry to make a hat-trick of wins.

After a slippery first over, RCC bowlers responded strongly in the starting overs...with Birthday-hulk-Watson, Roaring Bennett and Bend-it-like-Curly Robinson chipping away with wickets and Old Cholmeleians reeling @ 52/3. A platform to turn the heat on the opposition....BUT, what followed was a strange period of flair-less yet effective batting, equally unfair wet weather (for our hapless bowlers) and some real frustration in the field failing to affect the situation!

By the time Curly produced some magic again and Matt-chatter's superb finishing spell, the wet ball and gritty opposition batting had eroded away much of the advantage. At 163/5 the last concerted aggression from a spirited RCC team looking to pull off something miraculous was of little avail as a couple of snicks and a couple of slogs, saw the opposition get home comfortably in the end...

Marc Robinson with 3/53 of 9 took the bowling honours, with Rory and Matt Funge supporting beautifully to put a lid on the scoring rate.

Looking forward to next week's game, and with the fun and positivity in the team, definitely feels like an exciting summer ahead!!

(Submitted by Murtaza Shehabi)