Twos topple Toft

Dan was missing his first Saturday game in four years, vice captain Spavo called up to the first team so it was called upon Luke “the gobbler” to take the reins for this week. After an eventful ride to Toft which saw Chris “the fridge” break down with the stand in skipper and pacer Wiggy in the vehicle, it was Brayno and Jake to the rescue to ensure we had at least 10 men on the field for the start. On a surface that was rock hard but with a good amount of grass on top, Luke won the toss and decided that there could be a bit of movement early on so had a bowl.
Wiggy and Brayno opened up and shared a bowling partnership of 16 overs, 57 runs and 4 wickets, both bowlers getting a couple of victims a piece, looking particularly dangerous in the right areas, solid start! After a quiet spell, Luke called upon fishy and Jake to make something happen. Fishy being as reliable as ever went about his business and the Toft batters struggled with scoring off him as he went for only 9 runs in his 7 overs. That pressure only resulted in a single wicket for Fish but definitely helped Jake at the other end as the Toft players looked to be aggressive. Once Jake found his lengths, he looked dangerous and produced a couple of jaffers. After exchanging some words with Tofts number three, he proceeded to bounce him out and then produced a cracking delivery to take the edge of their number seven. After the AA had taken Chris’s car for repair he managed to get to the ground just over an hour into the game and after waiting the time necessary to allow him to bowl, himself and Will came on to try and mop up the tail. Chris bowled with plenty of energy and built the pressure without any luck. Will at the other end found his areas from the first ball and looked like taking a wicket in every over. With Chris not allowing the batsman to score at his end, they looked to target Will and that allowed him to take the last three wickets to finish the innings. Toft finishing on 129, well bowled.

It was great to have tea’s provided by Toft and the spread went down very well with lads. The second half was slightly delayed as Toft’s keeper managed to dislocate his finger while warming up and had to find his way to the hospital. So all fuelled up and Toft having a stand in keeper only half the job was done, it was time to try and knock the runs off. The skipper and Josh opened up but after what was quite a mixed bag of an opening over which saw wide short balls, beamers and decent deliveries unfortunately Josh was on the wrong side of a good yorker which he couldn’t manage to keep out. In comes Freddie. In their partnership of 30, both batters looked to put away the bad balls with Freddie playing some particularly good late cuts to put away anything short and wide. The ball that was Josh’s downfall was also Freddie’s (14), a surprise yorker taking his off-stump. Atif batting at four joined the stand in skipper to try and make sure this was a simple enough chase. After Atif was dropped first ball by the keeper while trying to play a short ball which caused a bit of a heart in the mouth moment, it all seemed to be going very smoothly with both players bringing out their trademark shots. With the score on 106 for 2, Chester seemed to cruising to victory but again Toft strikes with a yorker, this time at the undoing of Luke gone for 45. Modge now strides to the crease with Chester needing 24 runs to win. Unfortunately Modge’s second ball seemed to stay low, hitting the bottom of his bat and ricocheting into the stumps. Yikes, surely we couldn’t mess this up could we?! Lucky for us, we had two calm and collected batmen at the cease in the names of Atif and Jake and with a few balls making it to the boundary, we could all relax.
1 out of 1 for the stand in skipper and back to Boughton Hall to see the 1’s finish things in style as well, very enjoyable day!

MotM - Will for a excellent bowling display taking three wickets
DotD - Freddie for s***housery behind the stumps and saying something about tarmac drives?!