Sat 15th July 1st Xl v Caribbean away

League Cup - Part 4

Having made an earlier trip with the Tongans to Scott Hall Road I was keen to see what the first eleven made of the surroundings. Thankfully the outfield had been mown, though the wicket still seemed rather inconsistent and the wickets themselves appeared slightly off parallel.

Absences and injuries saw the inclusion of Chris Horsley in the side from the Tongans, and he was quickly thrown into battle as Reg lost the toss and we were put in to bat. Unfortunately for Chris he did not see a ball until the end of the third over as Ruley (the other half of an experimental opening partnership) managed to pinch the strike. As is the norm though with 'new boys' into the team he fell LBW. Fat Boy soon followed which meant that Darren and Lacky were forced into a slow, if steady recovery.

For the second week running Lacky went past the half century (told you it would be a late summer). Prior to this Darren had gone for 33 in the 29th over with the total only on 69, and a succession of wickets saw the removal of Buttocks (1), Huddy (0) and Piggsy (2). This left the total on 91 for 6 with only 8 overs left.

A late entry from Reg and a very short cameo from Herman finally took the total to 137 all out with only 5 balls left.

Tea was perhaps the highlight of the day. Besides the usual sandwiches and cakes Caribbean had also laid on a lamb curry and a spicy chicken - both of which would have been appreciated during the colder early season matches.

With such a low total to defend it was always going to be important to maintain a tight line and length, and by their very nature there was no way in which the Caribbean batsmen were going to be on the defensive.

A breakthrough in the very first over by Huddy though threw the opposition back on its heels somewhat and after only 6 overs there were only 7 runs on the scoreboard. The eighth over though saw Lacky go a little wild and he was hit for 10 runs, but at the other end Huddy was continuing with a remarkable spell. By the end of the thirteenth over Huddy had figures of 7-5-3-1, and, with the aid of his inhalator he was eventually able to come back for a second spell and finish the match with figures of 16.5-8-28-3.

As Caribbean continued to pick up the needed runs it was spotted that the spare ball was actually performing better that the match ball - a fact that came to light after the original had been despatched into the long grass beyond the boundary. When Piggsy was next flayed out over the boundary fence the senior Tong Support Club of Cross, McCutcheon and Hannam went off in the wrong direction in the hope of leading the rest of the ball seekers away from it's hiding place. Sadly nobody had told Chris Horsley that we were trying to loose the match ball and he very carefully directed one of the Caribbean players straight to it!

This lack of communication would not have stopped Caribbean's march to victory though as the League leaders came in with overs to spare.