15 August Little Kingshill (Away) Draw

Skippy wasn't available for this match so Mr V stepped into his shoes and carried on as normal by losing the toss. I'll be buggered if I know what'll happen if we actually win the toss this year.....

Little Kingshill is always a nice ground to play at with it's secluded location, short leg side boundary, sloping outfield and the views of the local countryside. Let's not forget the randy bull in the field next door that seems to spend it's entire afternoon "servicing" the local herd !

Put into bat on a soft pitch, the Iver openers managed to bore the pants pff most of the assembled crowd with some fairly uninspiring cricket. Fortunately for most concerned, Roll On was caught hooking having spent over half an hour putting on 27 for the opening wicket and Alien was transported to the crease. His communications with the mother ship must have been in full force as he somehow managed to play an innings of 77 without a single orthadox cricket shot. Edges through the slips, dolly catches put down, finding the gaps in the outfield with unnerving accuracy - it was the kind of innings batsmen love and bowlers have nightmares about. When Stanners came to join him at the crease the innings picked up a gear and we thought we might be treated to the first Stanners fifty. Jug avoidance came into play as he spooned a simple catch when on 49 and, as we all know, Stanners counts his runs when he's out in the middle....he knew he was one short of a maiden half century. Still, we've had 16 5 wicket jugs out of him over the years so I guess we can't get too greedy.....

Stanners downfall meant that DHB had a chance to accelerate the scoring to put us into a good position and did he take advantage or what ? His fifty came up in 16 minutes off only 17 balls with some seriously big sixes. This was a demolition innings of the highest order even by his own standards.

Set 241 to win, Little Kingshill got off to a faltering start and lost wickets at regular intervals without any of their top order bats really getting in. Stanners and Mr V bowled with great precision and could have had a few more wickets if it weren't for a couple of dropped catches. The lads fielded superbly and thoughts of a fifth successive win were in everyones heads until "Malteser Head" Caesar came to the crease. Mr Caesar had obviously watched DHB's innings with some interest and decided that he could do better and proceeded to despatch the ball into the surrounding fields with some ease (though he did play and miss to some unplayable deliveries from Roll On....hehehe) and seriously damage some bowling figures. All of a sudden, from staring defeat in the face Little Kingshill were starting to look like comfortably achieving the 16 an over they needed. The acting skipper came to our rescue and suckered Bubba with a slower ball and the game was safe as the overs ticked away.

A good all round performance against a great bunch of lads and I am certainly looking forward to our return match next year.

Man of the Match : Ben Smith (Alien) - 86 points