4s at Home to Staplehurst 2s

The Mote 4’s hosted Staplehurst and started well winning the toss and having a bowl, Sam Reed and Mushi Chowdury opened the bowling and despite good bowling the runs were flowing freely. Sam Reed got the first wicket with the opener pushing at a ball outside off which was caught well by Alex Presnell at first slip. The new batsman resumed where his partner left off and was looking like building a big total, it took an exceptional bit of fielding from Sam Reed to dismiss him for 44 with a one handed pick up and throw with one stump to aim at. But it was the bowling of young Charlie Hodgson and Tom Dunk which really impressed, not giving the batsman any width to work with. Tom Dunk got his first senior wicket with a well flighted delivery which bowled the batsman with no shot offered. Alex Presnell dried up an end going for only 22 off his 10 overs and getting a wicket caught behind. But this wicket brought the introduction of Colin Breed for Staplehurst who scored freely at the end of the innings, which brought Staplehurst to a good target of 175 off their 40 overs with the remaining opener carrying his bat and getting 50 not out.
The Mote’s innings started poorly losing Stephen Buckland with the score on 1 when he went back to a yorker getting clean bowled. In came James Waterson looking to make good of his first chance in the top order, but the partnership with Henry Buckland started slowly with only 14 runs coming off the first 9 overs. But with the shine coming off the ball the partnership started to develop with the scoreboard ticking over nicely but the boundaries came few and far between. Then Henry Buckland started to find the middle of the bat hitting the 13th and 14th overs for 16 and 19. James Waterson then drove the ball to mid-on looking to push run rate up further for 21, Henry Buckland fell soon after trying to play one too many shots and chipping the ball to cover for 56. The remaining batsman seemed to get starts but couldn’t push on with the required run rate increasing, but things were looking up as the second father-son partnership of the innings Matt and Tom Dunk started accumulating runs but were both dismissed for 11. Sam Reed strolled in at 9 for a short innings which included a huge six onto the top pitch but got dismissed the next ball. Ultimately the Mote were all out for 138 falling 40 short of the target.