Match report – 3xi vs Addiscombe - by Natedawg

"Lloydy's astute criticsim is commemorated by Addiscombe bat in leftover cheese sandwich" - Ed

HWRCC 229 all out (48.2 overs) – Goulbourn 59
Addiscombe 155 all out – Linter 5 for 29
HWRCC win by 74 runs

Scorecard

It is a fairly rare occurrence in league cricket that you have two consecutive away games against two different teams but at the same venue. However, returning to a ground where you had won the previous week and knew how the pitch would play is nevertheless reassuring when travelling to an away game. This week, back at the Queens Park ground in Caterham, the 3s were looking to record their second league victory of the season. The pitch still had a green top and was hard underneath. After winning the toss we decided to have a bat with a target of 200+ in mind showing how high our confidence is at the moment.

Goulborn and Ratnage opened up providing the perfect platform. Without taking too many risks they both batted sensibly pushing the score along at 4 an over until Sam (24) was bowled in the 17th over. Singh and Goldy took the total to 100 off 24 before the skipper kindly presented his outside edge to the opposing captain who gladly accepted it. Wick new boy Danny Byrne then joined Goldy in another 30 run partnership. Goldy continued to occupy the crease comfortably and brought up a beautifully crafted 50 before being caught trying to cut a ball that was too close and got a bit of extra bounce from the pitch.

In previous years the 3s have lacked consistency in the middle order. In one particular game last year against Old Emanuel we were in a similar position of 130 for 3 off 30 overs. In that game we were bowled out for 150 but this time we were able to push on to 229 thanks to Byrne (36), Clements (18) and Lloyd (24) who were unforgiving to any balls that pitched short from Addiscombe’s spinners. It was good to see everyone in the top 6 contributing for the second week in a row and hopefully this type of performance will be the norm and banish any memories of our opening day loss to Esher.

A long tea break followed due to late delivery of the food. The overall spread turned out to be okay with chicken nuggets, pizza and onion bhajis but with an unnecessary amount of cheese sandwiches, [sounds vile - Ed]the late service and the fact that everyone was already starting to look forward to some DBW specials next week I will have to give it a 6/10. [seems too generous - Ed]

Back out for the second half of the game Tommy D and Aqeel were given the new ball. Tommy didn’t play in the last game and after choosing to bowl downhill was presented with a wicket that had good pace and bounce. He took advantage of these conditions, removing the Addiscombe openers cheaply. At the other end Aqeel bowled an excellent 9 over uphill spell removing the leg stump of their number 3 with a great inswinging delivery. After the early wickets Hughes (31) and Narrine (55) put together Addiscombe’s only threatening partnership, involving a few good blows and a number of agricultural hacks that prompted the usually shy and retiring Lloydy to exclaim “what the f**k was that” louder than he had anticipated. Eventually Hughes was run out by some good work from Charlton and Linter and shortly afterwards Narrine’s off stump was removed by Linter to put the Wick firmly in control. Winter with an “L” went on to get another 4 wickets and Bendall 1 wicket as the 3s polished off the rest of the team for about 25 runs.

In summary it was another good team performance. With two consecutive scores above 200 and a strong bowling attack capable of taking 10 wickets we have gained some momentum that we can hopefully build on and keep looking up the table. MOM: This is a tough choice between Goldy and Linter but MoM goes to Goldy for a solid batting performance that set the tone for the game.