A game that looked to be a stroll on paper wasn't quite the walkover most people anticipated despite a 68-run victory over bottom of the table Stanford-Le-Hope at The Shen. Much talk before the game was about how many run we were going to score, or win the toss, put them in and bowl them out cheaply to get an early finish. Minds didn't seem focused on getting the job done in a proper fashion.
With the first three wickets falling inside 10 overs (Ronnie Jackson for 6, Tom Arnold for 16 and Caleb Seleka getting a first-baller) and only 24 runs on the board, shades of a batting performance similar to last week at Westcliff were being repeated. It was up to Ryan Plom and Will Howard to resurrect the innings. They put on 35 for the fourth wicket before Will fell for 11. Tom Austin was the next to fall without troubling the scorers with the score on 61 to leave us five down and looking in serious trouble again. Ryan then decided that attack was the best form of defence and paid for it in the 21st over, having scored 25. Jubilant Stanford couldn't believe their luck into how we were giving our wickets away and a score of below 120 was being mooted.
Two 44-run partnerships for the next two wickets were to prove crucial and both involved Jack Newton. His first with the skipper Dave Hickey (9) laid the platform for an onslaught that he, Jake Sedgley and Charlie Haddon upped the run-rate, smashed boundaries and finally put their bowlers to the sword. When Jack was the 8th wicket to fall, he had already passed 50 (six 4's, three 6's, 38 balls). He was out for 59, but had firmly swung the match back in our favour. Jake was out shortly after for 19, having looked assured in his batting. He had been joined by Charlie Haddon who took up the mantle with Dan Green for the final wicket and bludgeoned the bowlers, scoring 36 from only 24 balls to take us beyond the earlier improbable figure of 200. Dan was the last wicket to fall with the score on 207 (having scored 12), and for the second week running, we put ourselves in a position where we could defend a total. The downside for the visitors was that they had only reached 200 once this season, so our bowlers were in the box-seat, despite giving them four extra overs.
Despite the efforts of opener Michael Edwards (56)for Stanford, seven single-figure scores was never going to get them over the line. The decline started with a superb flying catch from Jack for the first wicket off the bowling of Tom Arnold. He got his second wicket in his next over, and it was ten overs before the fall of the third. This went to Caleb, playing in his last game before returning home to South Africa to spend time with his partner(???!!!). The fourth wicket came from the next ball, with the following batsman denying him a hat-trick.
From this point on, a slow and steady trickle of runs was followed by a fall of wickets. Charlie had a good day by taking the next three wickets in his six overs, Dan, took one, Caleb took his third, and Tom wrapped up the innings, also taking his third, as Stanford were tumbled out for 139, giving us a 68-run victory and another 25 valuable points. This increased our lead at the top of the table over Harold wood to 18 points, whilst staying 43 ahead of Woodford Wells.
Caleb leaves us as the league's joint top bowler (38) and on behalf of everyone at the club, we say an enormous "thank you", and we look forward to his return next year. Let's make sure he plays with us in Division 1 next season.
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