Match Report
30 June -v- Bethlem Royal Hospital at Bethlem Royal Hospital
Deprived of Old Man Martin, Spud was relieved at the availability of the in form Gary Gibson for his season’s debut and was able to add Limp to an otherwise unchanged side. For the first time this season heads landed face up and the skip had the choice of booking places in the local casualty sooner rather than later, by electing to bat.
No respecter of reputation, Chucks soon set about flaying the attack with a barrage of airy drives. Though short in duration his knock gave us valuable impetus and with Mark playing a familiar anchoring role we made sound and steady progress. Mark and Daz took the score to within a run of fifty before we lost our second wicket and though from thence it was a struggle, excellent contributions from CoCo and a resurgent Sumo enabled us to declare at 128-7.Neils Crusader best 26 combined an array of those subtle flicks he’s so good at and a hell bent desire to bury the ball as far into the woodland as was humanly possible. Victory was dependent on our ability to make early inroads into the Bethlem batting and although Danglers was at his erratic best, the pitch and his obvious guile were more than a match for their best. At the other end LSC was doing his best to feed long hops to the short leg side, but was finding few takers. Frustration started to show as our fielding starved Bethlem of the merest morsels and the ball not coming on to the bat, brought a succession of close catches off mistimed shots. The scent of victory was deep in the nostrils by the time Noskin replaced Jim and his first ball accentuated our position, as one of their more free scoring players fell to a catch at the wicket. The final pair made it plain that they were intent on denying us victory, but Daz sewed up the match courtesy of a fine diving catch from Sumo and in doing so finally joined the elite 7-Up Club.
Bethlem showed fine sociability, with little hint of any sour grapes as we celebrated win number six.
