Youngsters Lead The Attack

Youngsters Lead The Attack

DCC won the toss and put them in on a slightly damp wicket due to overnight rain. The bowling started with Will Phillips and Dale Godfrey (combined age 31) and they bowled really well against an experienced pair of left and right handed openers. Further rain soon followed with 4 overs lost so now we have a 43 over game. Play resumes and Dale is first to strike getting the opener LBW for 2. Will continues to beat the edge but has no luck, importantly though pressure is building as virtually no runs are being scored (15 overs and only 19 runs!). This was the best opening bowling partnership for the IV’s since we started and effectively set the foundations for a win. WP (7-3-12-0) DG (5-4-4-1). Tim B and Cam H then took over and carried the excellent start forward both bowling very tight lines and being well supported in the field – special mention to young Freddie Ferro in his first senior game who made many stops at SQ and Chris stone who took a sharp catch at point. TB ended with 7-1-13-1 and Cam with 7-2-22-2 and our visitors were now really struggling with 46 for 4 off 25 overs! Brooky and new player Andrew Walker then took over and again kept it tight with good support in the field, Brooky got a C&B and AW was unlucky not to get a wicket ending with figures of Brooky (5-0-12-1) and AW (4-0-16-0). It has to be mentioned that many lbw appeals were turned down due to “very thin” inside edges. Brooky then injured a finger so Coco took over the death bowling at one end and young (not the youngest Freddie on the pitch) Freddie F-W at the other. Clearly my pace or more correctly, lack of pace, caused the oppo problems as there was a lot of swing but no ding and eventually they popped up a chance to young Freddie Ferro at SQ and he made no mistake. Freddie did get a bit of tap but dislodged their well set Captain 63 bowling him middle stump. Freddie claimed he set him up with the bouncer before and then yorked him, whatever he did he got a good scalp. Dan kept very well and helped to build the pressure with solid glove work, with only one wayward legside ball going for 4 which should have been wided. They ended on 138-7 and Dorking IV had just delivered their best fielding display in 3 years.

The batting did not start well as Brooky 5, Cam 9 and Chris “0” (fair to say he got a devil of a first ball) were all dismissed quickly sending a few shockwaves through the dressing room. Andrew Walker (LHand) and Tim had some serious rebuilding to do against some accurate medium / quickish bowling, this they did very well and started to build our score. Bowling changes took the pace off the ball and created a couple of catching chances for which Tim had his fair share of, one of which was an absolute dolly. What do you do if you get dropped…. You make them pay and this is what Tim did as he started to accumulate with some mighty blows. But the main threat was coming from the other end as Andrew really punished anything on his legs and when the openers returned he just raced to 64 before being excellently ct by a diving keeper (this was a partnership of 118). Dan Chave was now in, but Tim knew he was close to 50 and with the last pull to leg to win the game he also reached 53.

Special thankyou to Lisa for scoring and keeping us all legal with the rules and to Chris Moon for a very tasty tea.

A great win for Dorking IV with everyone contributing both individually and as a collective team. The standard has been set for the season and we now know what we have to do to win.

As I enjoyed a pint in the pavilion after the game I reflected on just how proud I was of the team especially the youngsters who are developing into fine cricketers.

Well done and I look forward to seeing you all next week.

Capt Coco