Nuthurst began their Gullick Cup campaign away to Feeder Cricks of Christ’s Hospital School, the opposition being a mixture of school staff and pupils being introduced to adult cricket.

With a fantastic sunny evening Nuthurst the teams had the privilege of playing the 1st team ground at the school which surely will be one of the best wickets and stunning grounds played all season.

Winning the toss Nuthurst elected to field. The decision seemed to sit well with all the bowlers and immediately paid dividends with the ball swinging for both the opening bowlers Rob Keen and Will Rossiter. Both bowled accurately conceding very few runs before Rossiter made the breakthrough clattering the stumps with an unplayable away swinger.

Next up was Nuthurst’s T20 specialist Naveed taking a further 2 wickets bowled with Yorkers in his first over and the Feeder Cricks skipper who was just getting going in his second to good high catch by Adam Williams. Jonty and Raggy then kept things tight in the middle overs taking a wicket a piece caught behind and bowled respectively. This brought batsmen Ott to the crease and he was the only batsmen to trouble the bowlers (and nearly Jonny’s car) scoring 28 before the returning Naveed had him well caught behind. Naveed then bowled his final victim in the last over with yet another yorker ending with an impressive 4 overs 5 for 19 and Feeder Cricks setting a total of 114 for 8 off their 20 overs. A very solid performance from all in the field.

In reply the skipper sent out Nuthurst run machine Willis with Rossiter in the hope that Rossiter being 20 years younger, very quick and a lot “smaller” as Willis pointed out would encourage some high tempo running. Rossiter did not disappoint in torturing Willis who had to endure multiple 2’s before a couple of 3’s including one that crept over the boundary as Willis was similarly doing so into his crease.
The two progressed serenely to 53 for the first wicket punishing the few bad balls produced by a good Feeder bowling attack. Rossiter having seen he was a few shy of the mandatory retirement at 30 decided to end in style but was caught for a quick fire 25.

This brought Adam Williams to the wicket and he immediately found his feet hitting some clean boundaries together with Willis before Willis was forced to save his hamstrings for better days having done exactly the job he was asked by the skipper, retiring after his final boundary took him to 33. This left Williams and Singh to finish proceedings. With Singh uncharacteristically failing to farm the strike, that left Williams ending the game in style with a flurry of boundaries. Nuthurst reaching a 116/1 in 15.5 overs. With only 4 team group having such positive net run rate from our first game could prove crucial.

In all a true Gullick cup match played in great spirit. Accordingly teams then retired to the Bax Castle pub for refreshments. Next up is our annual rivalry with perennial cup winners Slinfold. Another win would go a long way to ensuring progression from the group.