Longwick vs HHCC

An account in bullet points, courtesy of Richard Austin:

1. Charlie won toss. With light drizzle threatening we agreed a 35 over game and fielded first.

2. Jez and Shrimpy bowled a tight first 6 overs on a difficult wet bouncy track. In Jez's last over Tim B dropped a sitter at first slip. Jez was then immediately taken off (to save his remaining overs for later) but he wasn't best pleased!.

3. The sun came out as Ben and I then came on and kept things fairly tight. Longwick were 76 for 3 after 20 overs (my figures were 7-3-10-3). Henry (cymbals) Capper having taken a sitter off me and having dropped a couple more off both Ben and I; something he admitted he has been doing a lot of lately.

4. Nick and Fiddy came on to bowl as the Longwick middle order started to try to up the ante. Nick took one wicket (unlucky not to get more), Fiddy bowled a horrible long-hop first ball which resulted in a brilliant over-the-shoulder running catch from Harry McHugh (Luke's mate), after which he settled down and bowled much better.

5. With the weather now sunny, Jez and Shrimpy returned to finish their alloted overs. Jez bowled well without much luck although he got an LBW with last ball of innings to finish on 7-1-22-1, with half the runs against him being wides! Shrimpy unfortunately lost the rythmn he'd had in his earlier spell and finished with 7 overs for 38.

6. Longwick ended on 144 for 6 off 35 overs – a testing target but one we were confident of getting, however when we emerged from the depths of the Longwick Village Hall after tea we were greeted with torrential rain – cue abandonment of match and general sense of anti-climax, although I sensed that our openers didn't much fancy going out on a wet-again track (Henry's comment of “That pitch will be an average-killer” might have been a clue!).

7. After standing in the rain outside The Red Lion of Longwick waiting in vain for the pub to open (this was at about 5.15pm and the pub normally doesn't open until 7, but their skipper had phoned up the landlord and asked him to open early apparently), 'bugger this' was the collective sentiment and we repaired to The Plough for much needed refreshment.