Kingswood vs Venturers, Wednesday May 18th

Kingswood 139-8 Venturers 110(?)-6

Kingswood were short of a few players at the due start time...again, and so they batted first, again. We opened well against a couple of bats who could hit the ball. Kevin opened the bowling with Simon S, taking three wickets between them. Ian G then bowled the opener, and throughout his spell Alex was brilliant behind the stumps saving boundaries with the ball swinging with the wind well down the leg side. Unusually this season Gregory's spell went unrewarded, while Fluffy was the pick of the bowling with three wickets. Two of these came from a highly effective spell of bowling that included a succession of deadly long hops and fizzing full tosses. His caught and bowled was the highlight though, off a would-be wide, which dismissed the accelerating number 4. Kevin took a sharp catch to send back the number 6 and a Fluff produced a good one to dismiss the number 7 LBW. Alex pulled off a stumping from Simon T's bowling in the last over to dismiss the dangerous number 5 but several of their batsmen got going and we leaked too many runs in boundaries.

We were never going to get 140 against reasonable bowling, but three figures is a good bet this season. Kingswood bowled virtually their entire team, and we got to bat against a good mixture of abilities, although they were predominantly pretty reasonable.

Richard and Simon T got us away to a steady start, and when Richard was unlucky to be stumped on 15 by a very handy keeper, Matt carried on at nearly a run a ball. Simon T was caught at cover, and later Matt was bowled but the score was good at around 50 after 11 overs. Kevin and Roger came together in the middle and between them they swatted the ball around. They were severe on anything short or wide and collected 8 boundaries between them. We were just starting to think that we might get a close finish when Kevin was run out on 35 by a good throw to the keeper, and after that the run rate dropped away.

Chris M showed good intent but also fell victim to a good throw out of the gathering gloom, while Alex showed that he is handy with batting gloves too, playing a fast-paced cameo. It was the penultimate over when he fell to a catch at midwicket, and we had 103. The final over was still all-action - Fluffy stumped playing a positive innings and Roger keeping out a good final ball to finish not out on 26. The post-match buffet, with tea and beer in the upstairs of the pavilion was a nice way to soften something of a clobbering, and apart from the incredible wind-chill late in the match, it was fun for all.

Fixtures & Results 2008