A lesson from Ley Hill

With the 1st XI making the mistake of getting through to the 2nd round of the NVKO the club's playing resources were stretched, nevertheless a 179 run defeat for a mixed team was not as bad as it sounded. Ley Hill had just two batsmen, both of whom scored heavily but Thompson's 147 almost died at birth as a first ball yorker squeezed under the bat and just shaved the off stump. We dropped a few catches as well, but Ley Hill freely admitted that they had very little back up to those two batsman. Pleasingly no-one's head dropped in the field and Harriet Knights, on debut, fielded well. A great credit to her coach, Stalky! Harry Gadsby took over the gloves to let Bridgen have a bowl and kept for the second half of the innings having never kept wicket before. A very tidy effort.

In reply we started brightly with 76 runs for just the one wicket off the first 12 overs. Martin Middleton anchored the innings with a fine 44. Bridgen, Hitchings and Gadsby T contributed a few more, but 130 was well short of our potential.