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1st XI - Match Reports
1st XI vs Folkestone - Saturday 31st May 2008Folkestone - 111 all out (45.2 overs - S.Ingram 5/25) Orpington - 112/8 (52.4 overs - w.Wolmarans 40) Orpington won by 2 wickets So Folkestone was week 4 for the OCC and we already found ourselves bottom of the league. An awful week's weather left us with an even slower and lower wicket than we are used to and it was obvious early on that the team fielding the best and bowling the fewest bad balls would probably come out on top. Folkestone won the toss [why do we bother tossing we know we will lose it] and decided to bat. An interesting decision, but to be fair the wicket remained exactly the same all the way through the day. Wess opened up with Benny C, as usual us having a number of keen bowlers to come down the hill but not so many keen to come up it! Both openers bowled with good control, Wess picking up an important wicket in cleaning up their opener who had looked good early on. Benny C was probably kept on one over too many, but just 31 runs from 13 overs was testimony to a good line on length. Yamma came on down the hill after Wess, and took up where he left on against Canterbury in taking 5-25 off 15 overs. Yes the wicket was extremely helpful, but he kept the poor balls to a minimum and got his rewards - well done for his 3rd successive 5-fer in the 1s. Welcome back to Schmidty as well who came on after Ben at the bottom end, and despite suffering a couple of lusty blows, ended up with 2-26 off 9. So how did we think we were doing at half time? Pretty well but a nervy chase was going to ensue was the tea time feeling. We dropped several easy catches, which could have been more costly than they were, and the ground feeling was ordinary at best. Doker kept well behind the stumps. We had some key luck at the right times, and were assisted by what seemed an extremely long tail from a depleted Folkestone side. Still we got the job done and they only added 2 runs for the last 4 wickets which gave us a late high. So now the run chase! I call it a chase because it took us 52.4 overs to get to our victory target. Getting the ball away was extremely hard and Himmy, our old mucker from games gone by, was almost impossible to hit. He was a constant threat and perhaps deserved more than his 2-23 off 16 overs although the excessive appealing did become tiresome to players and supporters alike. Getting through his spell without losing more wickets was probably key to our victory. Oz looked good with Pabs early on, but both fell in quick succession to turn a good start into a worrying one. Sanj was soon to follow, victim to a dubious LBW the very next ball to an incident which begged belief. Pabs swept a ball to fine leg, ran 3/4 of his first run when the finger went up for LBW. Pabs queried the decision [who wouldn't] and the umpire changed his mind. True farce, the Folkestone players [not surprisingly] kicked up a stink, and a levelling decision was not a surprise. After Wess had kindly run me out, we looked in trouble at 52-4. Wess carried the threat and his 40 was crucial, including 2 large 6s in one over. When he holed out though, we were 81-6 and panic set in for the supporters. Luckily for us the returning Schmidty showed some steel and ably assisted by Benny C we inched nearer to our target. Schmidty, in front of a decent sized crowd, decided to blaze the winning runs into Goddington Park - stumps everywhere, more panic. Well played to him though, an invaluable 19. The final runs were left down to Yamma, in what was his day. He duly obliged and glided one behind square and took 2 to the celebrating masses! So overall what a day and what a huge win. To win as opposed to losing that tight affair represented a 29 point swing on our opponents. We know that we will need to play a lot better than this, in all aspects of the game in future weeks, but we showed some bottle and there were a lot of positives to take from the game. We can look forward to going to Bexley with some optimism as long as we concentrate on the basics. Happy days. Robbo • Back to top |
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