The Venturers came into this match full of confidence on the back of some good performances. I won the toss and decided to bat, hopeful that our long batting line up would put the St Stephens bowlers to the sword. Andy and Roger opened the innings and made a lightning start, notching up 25 after only four overs. In the 6th over Roger and Liam got out in successive balls, but this didn’t halt the scoring as Rob Taylor came in and smashed the spinners to the boundary. The opposition captain, who spent the entire game sledging the venturers batsmen, found his bowling regularly dispatched to the boundary, until he managed to tempt Rob into one shot too many which resulted in his stumping. Andy reached his fifty and then soon departed, having been beaten by the slow old bloke labouring up the hill. The scoring rate then slumped as I struggled to hit the leg spin of `mini-Burvill’ which was far too slow for my liking. Kevin on the other hand had no such problems smashing it over square leg at regular intervals. He was then trapped LBW by another spinner who was bowling a bit quicker, which brought Betty to the crease. Like Dino and Kevin before him, he hit a few lusty blows, revealing a lack of enthusiasm for quick singles. After the spinners had finished they brought on a couple of medium pace bowlers which were much more to my liking, and I started scoring much quicker, including a massive six over mid wicket which the wicketkeeper (who had also spent the whole innings sledging) called “f**king agricultural”. We finished on 189 with Toby replacing Betty scoring some important late runs.

After tea (which was up to its usual standards) we went to field full of optimism, knowing a few early wickets would put the pressure right back on St Stephens. However, this was short lived as the two openers put on a stand of 160 off just 20 overs. We later found out they played for the Landsdown elite, suggesting that St Stephens wanted to win at all costs. During this stand they didn’t give a single chance, and none of the bowlers looked threatening (everybody bowled well but just had no answer to their batting talents). Kevin and Andy opened followed by Betty, myself, Duncan Rance, Andrew W, Liam and Rob Taylor. By the time we broke their opening stand, they had declined to take the game seriously, and they knocked off the remained runs in little more than five overs. Overall it was a good batting and bowling performance from the venturers, but we’re just not upto the standard of the Landsdown elite.