1sts V Old Eds

Fillongley hosted Old Edwardians looking to move on from last weekend’s resounding defeat to league leaders Barby. The mid June monsoons held off and some excellent work from JC on the pitch and Norm on the outfield allowed play to start on time at the greatest cricketing arena in the world. Fillongley were without Bren, Waq, Daud and Junior who were replaced by Andy Carty and Tom Revell as well as Will Horton and Jack Tregonning making their first team seasons debut. Spirits were high after we had beaten Weoley Hill the previous season with an almost identical 11 on show.
The captain of Old Edwardians called correctly at the toss, which seemed to come as a great surprise. Panic duly set in as he screamed his team mates asking what on earth he should do, after lengthy debate he decided to have a bat.
Myself (Bing) and Will Horton opened the bowling and immediately placed the Old Edwardians openers under pressure with 9 runs being scored off the first 9 overs. Eventually Saj decided enough was enough and had a nibble at opener Farouqi who obliged by hacking a catch to Saj the very next ball for a lengthy 25 ball blob. Will Horton who was under immense pressure due to the appalling choice of pre-game music was attempting to claw back any lingering respect we had for him with maiden after maiden in an impressive opening spell.
As expected, Old Eds digged in and then Shahzad started playing a few shots, but the game changed when the man with the sickest hair in FCC history entered the fray and destroyed Old Eds top and middle order. It was a spell of real consistency of line and length that Old Eds couldn’t cope with and one by one, lost their cool leading to 4 catches in the HT 5fer (5-33 from 12). Special mention to EJ for a hugely impressive leg side stumping to complete the Michelle.
DJ Horton returned and claimed well deserved wickets to end up with hugely impressive stats of 12-6-26-3. This however did not fully make up for the pre-game tunes and big, big lessons have been learned for future weekends. Hats off to Jack Tregonning for cleaning up what threatened to be a little partnership at the end of the innings, another impressive shift by the future of FCC.
Tea was a pleasant affair with the sun starting to break through and Bren’s sandwiches flying off the tray like hot cakes. Great cookies too.
The FCC reply was excellently started by Reg and Franks who sensibly set about their work to register an opening stand of 66. Reg was eventually caught at mid on for 33, but then Sajja came to the crease and dispatched any lingering hopes Old Eds had of getting a point with 44 off 42 balls which was described by some of the FCC spectators as “so sik”. Hats off to Franks for playing a really responsible knock to ensure there was absolutely no repeat of the FCC collapses of previous seasons.
To win with such a young team was excellent, and to record a 24-0 victory against a team one position below us in the league will give the club a real boost. With the injury list hopefully shortening we will aim to use this to push on throughout the second half of the season.
Thanks for the birthday wishes and to everyone who stayed up the ground to buy me dirty pints and other filth. It was great to see nick get loose and run in from the showers, his consistency in line and length at 1am after several lemonades can only be applauded. Must have been windy too, the gazebo and sightscreen got blew right over Tims car!!!
Peace