For the very first time in a number of years the mighty Crescent had two teams out this Sunday. The home fixture was against a now regular fixture Cutters Choice.

On an absolute scorcher of a bank holiday weekend we gathered in the better looking by the week Horsdean.

Having travelled back from Lisbon and a stag party in the early hours of the morning I walked to the middle with the opposition skipper and won the toss. Slightly tired, deluded, and without any thinking, chose to bowl because that is what I did last week. Their skipper was slightly surprised and gleefully walked off to inform his players they were batting.

With the plan to keep myself awake I chose to open the bowling with one of three debutants, the very accurate Raj. This worked well as Raj and I reduced the opposition to 19-4 by the 8th over. With the fear of rampaging through them I chose to do what might be described as ‘naïve’ and withdrew both of us from the attack.

The second of the other debutants for the day, Simon Partridge, replaced Raj and started with 3 maidens and bowled very accurately throughout, quite possibly deserving an LBW appeal. The other end Andy took a moment or two to get the radar into position.

As the score approached 70 I turned to chewy and the third debutant Anish for a breakthrough. Anish bowling his darted off-spin caused instant problems for the batsmen and he got his reward soon enough clean bowling a middle order batsman who looked technically correct but never looked like he was going to play an aggressive shot. At the other end Chewy bowled his nagging line and managed to pick up 2 wickets via some regulation catches by Joe and Harry.

The Remaining overs and wickets where shared by the Gatford clan each picking up one via Giri at gully and a sharp catch behind by Terry. Terry having entered the field of play about 30 mins later than everyone else, he managed to get himself muddled up with the start time.

Cutters ended on 111 which was maybe 20 – 30 to many as all will be explained but I was happy we had bowled well, taken catches and showed good energy in the field.

The usual spread was quickly assembled then demolished almost as quickly. I would like to send special thanks to Marion and John Brooks who were attending as supporters and attended to all the washing up for us after tea.

As Joe and Giri walked to the middle to set off after 112 to win I felt quietly confident it was all in hand. At 44 without loss I was almost getting changed out of my whites. What follows is what can only be described as an omnishambles, as our middle and lower order batsman were like one of those instant coffee machines where from bean to cup they muck up. There was every sort of dismissal I think including 3 LBW’s, catches, run outs, and even poor Simon backing up was unfortunate to have the ball deflected by the bowler onto the non-striker’s stumps causing him to be run out without even facing.

The collapse was well and truly on when Chewy holed out to long off via a very casual one handed grab and it was time for Juan Hall. Now by this point I was almost ready for bed and played what some would call a gritty skippers knock, others would say 99.9% garbage wafting. I Told Andy at the other end there was plenty of time left and I just wanted to pick off 3 runs an over until the final 5

overs and see where we were at. Andy dug in and we scampered runs mostly of the edges of the bat. The innings ended when Andy missed a full toss and it cannoned into his pads below the knee. Terry left with no option but to return Andy’s favour of the slow death from the umpiring end earlier in the innings. All out for the mid 80’s with 7 overs left.

A great bowling and fielding performance by all, maybe some more work to be done in the batting department.

Next week is Lindfield and some well-known opponents in the form of Mr. Newcombe and resident angry man/no-hoper, Kidders

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