Mote 3rd XI v Bobbing Court 1st XI: 15th August 2015

The 3’s took on Bobbing Court with 10 men on Saturday and on losing the toss were asked to bat first. Raj Raveendran and James Pude opened up and got us off to a good start scoring 11 off the first over. The two of them put on 43 for the first wicket and after losing Steve Buckland on the same score Raj was joined by Martin Marenghi. They continued to build the innings with Raj going passed 50 but unfortunately we lost Martin just before drinks with the score on 109. This wicket seemed to trigger one of the best Mote collapses of the last few years with the last 7 wickets managing just 30 runs which included Mo Tahir hitting 18 off 16 balls as the 3’s were bowled out for 139.

From the position we were in just before drinks this was a disappointing end but it did leave us with something to bowl at though Bobbing had 59 overs to chase it.

Mo Tahir and Nathan Periera opened the bowling but together were unsuccessful in breaking the opening stand. It was left to Raj to take the first wicket with 25 on the board which then in turn brought 2 more as Bobbing were reduced to 33 for 3. The fourth wicket partnership took them past 50 as they started to bring their target in sight and it was left to skipper Chris Feltham to break it. This started a mini collapse as we managed to take 5 wickets for 30 runs leaving the game slightly in our favour but still far from over. As the injured Bobbing keeper game to the crease they still needed 40 runs but batted positively to reduce the target. As the target was reduced to less than 20 Mo managed to break the crucial partnership and it was left to Mo again to take the final wicket of the keeper as Bobbing fell 12 short in the 54th over. Mo finished with 4 wickets and the skipper took 3 and conceded just 8 runs off his 12 overs but it was a good fielding performance all-round.

This was a crucial 20 points for the 3’s which should secure safety but there is still a bit of work to make sure with 3 games still remaining.