Tong vs Garforth A: Saturday 28^th May

Tong’s fantastic start to the season continued in positive fashion on Saturday with their fourth win out of five games completed so far. Garforth A arrived expecting a tough battle as Tong had already defeated their 1^st team in the opening round of the Hepworth Cup three weeks earlier – Raj’s impressive 113 securing victory that week.

Garforth A won the toss and chose to bat first on a good looking wicket, but despite some resistance early on from opening batsman S. Fearnley (29) they never really got going as wickets tumbled at regular intervals. The pace bowling partnership of Duncan and James worked well from the start – Duncan keeping things tight from the car park end while James caused the batsmen problems running in down the hill, returning his best ever figures of 6 for 50. Kedar once again proved to be a wily customer, his changes of pace and spin bewildering Garforth’s batsmen and earning him figures of 4 for 15.

Tong did their best to make the total a challenge – Raj’s farcical fielding providing the comedy moment as he energetically chased a ball down and then booted it over the rope. Garforth A’s total of 97 caused few problems for Tong, skipper Gareth returning from his holidays to strike an attractive 29 and Raj (43*) hitting some classy drives through the off side to show Garforth that the wicket wasn’t as difficult to bat on as they seemed to think. Unbeaten in the league and still in the Hepworth Cup, Tong are full of confidence and their success looks set to continue.