As soon as we turned up for our annual away match with The Legion & looked at their team, it was obvious that we needed to win the toss & field first to make a game of it. After a mass debate between acting captain Chris Brook & Matt Bowles, tails was called & guess what… down it came heads, so we were batting!

In bowler friendly conditions on a damp drying pitch, we lost Rama Patel to the fourth ball of the innings for 0 & Guy Wenham for 3 in the 9th over, to stand at 18-2. Rob Potter (7) & Carl Brook (who top scored with 22), then put on 25 for the third wicket & at 34-2 off 13 overs things weren’t looking too bad. Then came over number 14 bowled by former Vale ginger Berwick Smith, who took three wickets in four balls to reduce us to 35-5. Wickets fell steadily after that until Chris Kirkham (16) (out to a great one handed catch by that ginge again) & Ivan Buss (10 no) put on 20 for the 8th wicket & we managed to limp along to 71 all out of 33.4 overs, having thoroughly entertained the crowd of six by scoring at a rate of 2.1 runs per over! On what has to be said was a disappointing batting display; even extras could only manage 8! Pick of the bowlers were Thackral 2/20, Murray 2/10, Foster 1/22, Beaumont 2/8 & Ginge 3/0, who did all bowl really well.

After quite a lengthy tea break sponsored by Heineken, Chris Brook tried to confuse & amuse our hosts, whilst trying to keep all of our players awake & scared, by giving everyone 2 overs each. Rob Potter took a wicket in his second over (1/3) courtesy of a neat catch by Guy Wenham & an unlikely victory looked on. Unfortunately, at this point reality set in as Salmon (28 no) & Westbrook (35 no) guided the hosts to 72-1 off 21.4 overs, to win the match by 9 wickets.

Without doubt the best part of the match was the tea & getting home before 7 o’clock!