Gordon & Cross Steady the Ship and set up Victory

Scorecard

A good, gutsy win from us against a Hatfield Peverel team that were barely recognisable from the side that we played and beat comfortably earlier in the year.

After a run of handy toss wins at the start of the year on wet wickets, we are now finding ourselves continuing to field first as the hot weather has coincided with our fortune at the coin taking a downturn. However, we really were excellent early on. Crossy took the new ball for the first time this year, and straight away nipped out the Peverel top order with three wickets as his tight line put real pressure on from the start. Sean was on the money from the other end, and it says something about how he has grown into the team that he was completely unfazed by a tiny legside boundary.

On a slow, dry wicket, Albert and Andrew came into the attack quite early and were soon among the wickets too. In addition to this, our fielding in the first 25 overs was as on point as it has been all year, lead by what was probably Loz's best game with the gloves so far this year. At 70/6 we smelt blood, but a brilliant 7th wicket stand soon put us in our place. I think we can hold our hands up and say that our bowling and fielding in the last 15 was not at the high levels we have set at times this year, and the Peverel lower order were all able to get some shots away to ensure they passed the 200 mark. Sean came back and picked up the last couple of wickets and was perhaps unlucky with a few skewed edges that evaded fielders, but the final score of 216 was at least 30 more than we should have allowed them to get.

It looked like that was could be costly when both me and Ash were back in the hutch in the first 5 overs having played early on shots. Munch came in and looked pretty good, but a horrific miscommunication between him and Gunnar led to his downfall, and when Diags became the third batsman into a shot too early we were looking dicey at 70/4. What follwed was a match-winning partnership between Gunnar, proving his second team credentials, and Crossy, who continued his great season. Both made contrasting 50s that were perfectly paced, taking advantage of the short boundaries one side and the vast areas of space on the other wisely. The fact that more often than not we have managed to "find a way" this year has been the cornerstone of most of our wins and shows what we missed out on last year. Not many players other than perhaps Crossy and Albert with the ball have been necessarily as consistent as they would have liked, but every week two or three different people have stuck their hand up and made valuable contributions.

When both Crossy and Gunnar fell with the score on 193, the wise old heads of Loz and Albert came in and finished off the job to ensure there would be no real panic in the camp. A good win that reinforced the view that there really are no easy games in this league - Peverel may be bottom, but they could have quite easily turned us over here. The top 6 in the division is more than likely going to change every week between now and the end of the season, especially with holiday season coming up for everyone, so the continued ability to grind out wins like this are what will define our season.