Not Enough Runs

On a damp pitch, after the torrential rains of the week, Banbury won the toss and unsurprisingly invited Cubs to bat. Both Junaid Allie and Chris Baines started off in a watchful manner as the pitch produced a few difficulties, however, Junaid was ruthless in dispatching any loose bowling to the boundary and things were looking well set when first Baines (7) and the Venables (10) fell leaving the score 58 for 2. Sam George supported well to move the score to 95 until both Sam (9) and Alec Howe fell leaving us 95 for 4. This still looked promising as long as Junaid remained. He departed with the score on 117 for a classy 83 leaving us 7 down. The final 3 wickets offered some resistance but Banbury wrapped up the innings for just 129, with their two spinners taking 4 wickets each. This total left us with a lot of work to do in the field but we all felt it was possible to take the 10 wickets if we bowled and fielded well.

With this in mind both Ollie Fairhurst and Owen Venables bowled tight opening spells, giving away very few runs but not really getting the wickets we required. However, up stepped Nick Rowe to produce a superb spell of 4 for 29 off his 10 overs (his best return for the firsts). He was ably supported by Matthew Sparke who again bowled superbly well to concede just 12 runs off his 8 overs and picking up a wicket at the end. As we continued to limit the scoring we always felt there was hope, however, we needed to prise out the Banbury skipper which did not happen and they eventually reached the total in the 49th over with 7 wickets down. Our downfall was eventually the number of wides we conceded which at 42 was far too many, especially when defending such a meagre total. That said there were plenty of positives to take from the fielding and much of the bowling but we need to bat for longer than 35 overs and bowl far fewer wides.