1s v 2s Match Report - by Chris Walker

With both sides going into this match unbeaten in the first half of the season and with the 2nd XI juniors now 6 inches taller than last season, this tussle was likely to be closer than previous years and so it proved, although the match ended with a fairly comfortable victory for the 1st XI by 42 runs.

The early stages of the match saw the 2’s keep a lid on the usually free scoring Alex Smith and Chris Walker and both survived tough chances before the first sanitisation break at 6 overs with the scoring rate barely 3 an over. After that normal service was resumed with Smith reaching his 50 in 38 balls and Walker in 47.

With the openers retired and pick of the bowlers, Damien Hutchinson, into the attack the scoring rate slowed. Hutchinson finishing with figures of 3-26 from 8 tidy overs, including Jack Bellars for 35 thanks to a Michael Gibbens boundary juggling act.

Two fine run out direct hits in the field from Gibbens and Chris Bailey accounted for two more and the 1’s had gone from 137-0 to 187-5. Some lusty hitting from Ben Donovan (28no) followed and although Will Jones and Dylan Campbell returned to pick up a wicket apiece, the 1’s closed on a decent 226-7 in 40 overs.

The 2nd XI innings started steadily with both batsmen taking advantage of the obligatory 2m distancing to pierce the slip cordon before Poonie Van Der Merwe made the break through as the new 2’s skipper, Nick Driver failed to find the gap in the slips this time around.

This brought Chris Bailey to the wicket and along with a rejuvenated Jim Paulett they began to pepper the railway bank. However, the cavalier Paulett fell for 31 attempting another big shot to give Emil Van Zyl his first club wicket.

Bailey continued to attack bringing up his 50 in 58 balls before retiring with the score on 110-2. The advent of spin from Matt Lewis (3-25) and Samir (1-11) slowed the scoring and reduced the 2’s to 145-7. Then the reintroduction of pace from Van Der Merwe (3-56) saw the 2’s finished on 184-8 despite a late flurry from Gibbens (19) including two maximums.

All in all great to be back on the pitch at last and hopefully this bodes well for what remains of the league season.