Slow Start for BHCC 16’s
On a beautiful evening down at Patcham Place the Under 16s started the summer 20/20 season with a visit to our old adversaries St PetersCC. The council maintained pitch was extremely green and a damp wicket led to new skipper Jack Cooper opting to have a bowl and allowing SP the chance to set a target.
Early on we bowled tight and were unlucky not to breakthrough as we induced some edges and play/misses. However, the opening batsman for SP found his rhythm and pumped a few bad balls to the boundary to get them rolling. Skipper JC was 1st to breakthrough as he bowled the no.2 and then a sharp Dan Austin run out had SP 49-2 from around 10 overs. Wickets continued to tumble at regular intervals but with increased erratic no balls and small fielding errors we leaked avoidable runs. Niall Murphy bowled some decent leg spin as he struck 3 times in as many overs, Nathan Turner pouch/ LBW & clean bowled were his method of dismissal. A dolly for Curly Pummell off JC gave him very pleasing figures indeed from his allotted 4 overs. Tom ‘Macca’ McCreadie chipped in with a clean bowled victim, while Niall & Tom Cooper ran out two more in simple fashion. SP finished on 92-9 on what was a slow wicket but very small boundary, something we were confident of chasing.
Curly & TC opened up and were extremely patient against a very accurate and probing opening seam attack. Both continually defended confidently but the runs were seemingly tough to come by when playing orthodox cricket strokes through lush grass. It was Curly who fell first as they looked to increase the run rate, run out scampering a quick single. TC followed in the same fashion before his brother JC was bowled on the back foot. Mason Foley (who kept very well on his return) & Austin looked strong as they pushed us onto 55 but evidently the boundaries were scarce and the outfield was slowing rapidly as the sun faded. Mason was caught from a skier as he looked to speed up proceedings and Nath was clean bowled for a golden quacker off a reverse swinging magic ball (apparently). Austin, Tom Booth & Macca quickly departed as both all were clean bowled off accurate but unthreatening pace and we were 62-8. Toby Wardrobe belted his 1st ball for 6 as he showed the other players how it should be done, at the same time Niall ran hard during several overs of trying to force a victory. After a messy stumping for Niall off the spinner our two final batsman were left needing 15 off 2 overs. Jacko hit a lovely cover drive but in the end fell short by just 8 runs.
The pitch and outfield certainly deteriorated but the reasons for losing were down to personal performance. Not holding a few catches, a couple of fielding errors and bowling inaccuracy were our downfall at the start. However, a target off 93 should be gettable and with our batting we must understand the format better and look to manipulate the ball & opposing fielders. Plenty of work at nets & we hope for a better team performance next week at Home to one of the title favourites and personal rivals HurstpierpointCC.
