Hibberd Delivers in Canterbury Semi

For those of you who weren't watching SS3 on Sunday because you were too busy mounting your stamp collections or reordering your sock drawer, you missed a cracking afternoon's cricket at Canterbury.

It's not often these days that Wickman watches cricket at non Test grounds. It's probably 30 years in fact since he was last at Canterbury. In those days Fat Gatt was not so fat and was smashing sixes into the car park for fun.

Likewise Wickman has only ever seen Hibberd junior play on club day at the Wick. The year he played he managed a couple of wickets and couldn't get the ball off the square. Those Wick Men who were on the last tour but one remember him smashing a ton at Wadhurst or Crowhurst or somewhere. And of course Hibberd Snr keeps us updated as to his feats of derring do - viz the famous 157.

So it was an extraordinary pleasure to walk into the St Lawrence ground on the last day of September to see the sqaure already scarified, one solitary short boundaried wicket left for the day's play and 300 die-hard supporters (glory hunters in our case) braving the chilly periods when the sun went behind the clouds. For once we could walk on the outfield, gain access to hallowed areas without fussy stewards interfering and watch really good cricket in which we had a real stake - Hibby.

But Canterbury is a long way from London on a Sunday. A two hour train journey on top of the trip to Waterloo was not the best use of Sunday morning. Mutterings were muttered. In his absence Hibby Jnr was urged not to get a duck, go for runnnnnnnnssss and not make the final...

Joyfully, he did not disappoint. In his semi-final he bowled his four overs off the reel. He began with a wicket maiden, bowling a Cheltenham opener, spinning the stump into the air before it javellined into the turf. A wicket maiden in the first over of a 2020 game. FFS! He bowled through, tempting a dangerous oppo bat to spoon a catch to point to return amazing figures of 4-1-15-2. Unbelievable. The oppo never recovered and only posted 103 or so.

The Totton and Eling reply did not start brilliantly. The openers became bogged down by a two paced track and soon the rate crept up from a sublime four an over to a slightly more worrying 6 an over. A wicket fell and Hibby strode in. He had a look at his first ball and lashed the second for four, slightly mistimed through mid on having waltzed down the track to a bowler who looked to be the pace of Joey.

He went on to batter 30+ off 15 ball including a succession of pulled sixes and a glorious lofted off drive for four. The game went away from Cheltenham in those 15 balls. Team mate Savident (ex Hants) saw them home, but Rob Key had eyes only for Hibby Jrs all round performance when it came to naming man of the match.

The travelling glory hunters were ecstatic. Here are the very fingers of Rob Key scribbling down the name of Hibberd as MOM. MOM. On TV and everything...