Guest makes the lions share of Leo’s big total.

Our penultimate home game of the season saw us play host to promotion chasing Old Leos. It was a lovely sunny afternoon with a warm playful SW wind and once again skipper Jimmy Liddle won the toss. He decided to put Leos in.

Dan White and Andy Clark opened the bowling but Andy’s week off had done him no good what so ever. He struggled finding line and length right from the off. A shadow of the bowler who terrorised opening partnerships a couple of weeks ago. This waywardness allowed the Leo openers Chris Huby and Chris Buck to get of to a comfortable start on what looked to be a good batting wicket.

Clarks poor bowling forced Jimmy to bring on Adam Gee earlier than he would have but it proved to be a blessing in disguise as he got Huby trapped lbw his second ball, things got even better for us when Dan picked up two wickets in two balls in the following over. One of them a spectacular catch at first slip from Andrew Jarvis. Reaching down low the ball seemed to plant itself into his hand. The repercussions of this would affect our batting reply later on.

Danger man Andrew Guest came into bat at number three, having score 84 no against us in the first game. He was soon into his stride; his first five scoring shots all boundaries. Together with Stuart Cobbert, they forged a 86 run partnership for the 4th wicket. Guest wasn’t finished when Cobbert was out one shy of his 50 and together with wicket keeper Josh Habegham put on further 68 runs. Finally, Guest was dismissed to an excellent catch by stand in Milford keeper Stuart Morley for 73 with the score on 195. 11 overs of the innings remained and Leos looked set for a big score.

Habegham pressed on the attack and hit two big sixes off bowler, veteran, John Cain’s last over. He was finally out to another fine catch from Billy Thompson for 53 off only 39 balls. The Leo tail wagged and scored another 31 runs to close on 259. Dan White returning into the attack to pick up another couple of wickets, one a spectacular one handed leaping catch at the beck side by Andy Clark, to finish with best figures of the day 4 for 41.

So time for a bit of tea, provided I believe by Steve Hall. Certainly better than last week by a long chalk. Leo’s total was a good one but not impossible at the Swan Croft plus we had the benefit of two extra overs.

The familiar opening partnership of Jimmy Liddle and Stuart Morley took to the field. Stuart took the lead and pushed the score on. Fifty coming up in the 13th over. Stuart and Jimmy went on to their 3rd 100+ partnership of the season in the 24th over. Stuart out shortly afterwards failing to clear the field at long off for season best of 76.

Dan White joined Jimmy in the middle and had soon caught up Jimmy’s score. The skipper seemingly happy to let the youngster have the majority of the strike as he was playing some lovely free flowing strokes. Dan’s fifty coming up of just 47 balls including 5 fours and a six. Dan fell for 57. Jimmy seemed to be struggling today and runs were not flowing as freely as usual his fifty coming off 106 balls.

This is the stage of the match where we paid for Andrew Jarvis’s exertions earlier on. Having pulled his bicep in taking the slip catch he struggled batting, just when we needed to repeat knock of last week against East Keswick he got a second ball duck. All the momentum drained from our batting and Leo’s Nick Boyes and William Marshall bowled economically enough to get the run rate creeping up close to double figures. When Jimmy was finally out for 54 in the 43rd over we needed 55 off 5 overs. This proved a bridge too far, despite a big six from Jonathan Mills, and our innings closed on 232 for 6.