Nuthurst win two in two

Nuthurst win two games in tow days against two of our more challenging opponents.
After a rare victory over Headley the day before our friends from Preston Park made the ad-hoc trip to Manning’s heath for a bank holiday game. We had been informed this was a weaker Preston side but as the Nutters who had turned out looked towards the tree line like meerkats to see Kahn walking up the path, we realised this side may not be that weak.
Captain Raggy won the toss and chose to field. With the best of the weather to start the innings other than a strong blustery wind and a chilly feel Raggy opened with Jonty. Raggy immediate made an impact removing the opener with a wonderful catch from Dave Butcher and I can confirm no knee was used in the taking of the catch at point.
Preston Park struggled to adapt to the blustery conditions and went arial on numerous occasions into the wind. The 1st occasion of note was from the opener Mosha who had decided to launch his own expedition to Mars! With the ball launching in a purely upward trajectory DT at Mid on was under this but with so much time decided to reminisce over Crystal Palace’s premier league years but realising there have actually been a few years failed to hold onto the returning ball. A couple of overs later and after a bowling change Simon Whitehouse bowled to Ahmed who also decided to launch one towards Mars on exactly the same course as Mosha. This time DT decided to write his political memoirs, and these are a lot shorter than Palace’s premier league glory years and was well set to take the returning catch. The ball has been sent to NASA to check for new life forms.
Keith Greenwood removed the other opener for 20 trapped LBW. Simon Whitehouse was having a brilliant spell and forcing the batsman to go arial against the wind on a number of occasions. When he went full the batsman were only finding the edge and two wickets in tow balls, with the second being taken at the 2nd, 3rd or maybe 4th attempt by Bob in slips. Unfortunately, the hat trick did not happen with a very strong defensive block.
Amar bowled with pace and was rewarded with a wicket bowling Mafizb for 19. David Thompson took the wicket of Faruk for 1 also bowled. Special mention to both the Kalpesh’s. With dad keeping wicket and doing a great job behind the stumps and son who bowled a wonderful spell at the end and although wicketless kept control against some good batsman including the destructive Kahn.
Preston Park declared on 200 and in a timed game awarded the Nutters and extra 6 minutes to bat with.
After a quick turnaround due the impending weather which was now a lot greyer and windy then when we began.
In an unusual batting position Simon Whitehouse opened with Bob Samways. Simon set off like this was a 20/20 scoring a quickfire 10 before falling to Kash and caught. This brough Dave Butcher to the crease and added a couple to the total before being bowled by Kahn’s for his 1st wicket of the day. Kalpesh now joined Bob at the crease who was having a wonderful battle with Kahn and was winning at this stage. Kash then removed Kalpesh for two for his 2nd wicket of the day.
Ollie Prior then joined Bob who was steadily going about the job, Ollie on the other hand decided to take Kahn to the cleaners for and over hitting him for 7 before being run out but this wound Kahn up and throughout the over could see Kahn slowly improve his pace ball by ball, and even more noticeable after Ollie had hit Kahn for a lovely boundary.
The match winning partnership was now in place with Raggy now at the crease with Bob. Together they took the attack to Preston Park. From 47/4 to 159/5 putting on 112 partnership. The filed was spread for Raggy who just picked off the singles allowing Bob to penetrate the closer field for the boundaries. Bob was eventually bowled for 68 off Sokhi and this brought David Thompson to the crease with the instruction of being there at the end. Raggy eventually played on to Kahn for 56 AND Jonty now at the crease with David both under the same instruction two balls later Keith went having got ‘one of those balls’ that ripped the glove and went through for a caught behind.
The rain had now started and with 10 over to face from a very accurate bowling attack Amar played the way he does and today paid off. Despite the repeated message to play sensible Amar attacked most deliveries but in doing so and despite adding a few grey hairs to captain Raggy his flair got the runs needed with 8 balls to go in what was now monsoon conditions.
Nuthurst finished on 203-6. Having wound our ‘under strength’ opponents up the 11 selected I believe are not available for the same fixture in 3 weeks’ time! Good luck to those who are!