Napton CC v Leamington Lemmings CC

Report by Malcolm Thomas

Team-Captain Sam Sensecall was unfit to play this week so the responsibility was handed to Vice-Captain Mike Eadon. On match-day, Mike woke up with something that made it necessary for him to ‘cry-off’. There was much speculation amongst his team mates.
The captaincy was passed to Tom Hancock.

This fixture was shown in Napton’s fixture list, and advertised in the Parish Magazine, as an ‘Away Fixture’. It was actually played at Napton

Due to the threatened rain, the captains agreed on a 35-over game instead of the usual 40 overs. Bowlers being restricted to a maximum of 7 overs. This turned out to be a prudent decision.

Captain Tom won the toss and put the visitors into bat.

Napton made early inroads via a Stuart ‘corker’ that skittled batsman No.2 in the 3rd over.
Joe then gave Stuart his second wicket in the 7th over with a grand catch. The ball was hoisted extremely high. Joe got underneath its descent and waited patiently for it to arrive and took the catch above his head.
Lemmings: 27-2
First-change bowler Rob started his spell with a wicket-maiden. 38-3 after 11 overs.
The visitors then settled in and accumulated some runs until Ollie bowled batsman No 1.
A run-out, engineered between Tom and Graham accounted for another wicket and soon after that Steve took his first wicket for the club -- clean-bowled.
124-6 after 29 overs.
Tom came on to bowl. In his 2nd over he fell to the ground holding his calf. He hobbled off and that was the end of his captaincy!!
Three captains down and the mantle was handed to an ex-captain --- Stuart.
He took a couple more wickets and Leamington Lemmings completed their 35 overs on
157-8.
Wicket-takers:-
Stuart Alsop 7 overs 3 maidens 4-18
Rob Pelter 7 overs 1 maiden 1-19
Ollie O’Brien 7 overs 1-34
Steve Palmer-Boyd 1 over 1-8
1 Run-Out

With the venues of this game and last week’s being changed, Liz’s tea rota has been all awry.
However, I think cakes were supplied by Jen, Jo, Shelly, Rachel, Lorraine with Jen and Sam sorting the rest. Amanda, Vikki, Rachael and Jen served it all up. What a great team effort and what a grand tea it was.
Napton took to the crease with just over 4.5 runs per over required.
Not long into the innings the rain started, quite lightly at first but it became a steady downpour that continued throughout Napton’s inning making conditions difficult with batsmen slipping on a few occasions.
The home team lost their first wicket in the 5th over and Joe joined Stuart at the wicket.
Joe is certainly back amongst the runs and found the boundary with regularity.
The Alsop duo stayed together until the 23rd over and put on a partnership of 94 runs until Joe was caught soon after his half-century. 110-3
With many regular batsmen missing it then became important for Stuart to protect his wicket whilst building on the score and supporting incoming batsmen.
James had a good knock and in the 34th over JP hit a ball that didn’t quite reach the boundary but a scrambled 3 runs gave Napton the victory.
Napton 158-4 after 33.1 overs.
By ‘carrying his bat’ Stuart became the linchpin of the innings and Joe provided a score that was vital to this result.
Joe Alsop 58 runs 10 boundaries inc. 1 six
Stuart Alsop 44 runs Not-Out 6 boundaries
James Cooke 17 runs 3 boundaries
Ollie O’Brien 10 runs 2 boundaries