North Mid 3rd XI

Saturday, May 29th 2004 - League

NLCC 3’s Vs North Middlesex

Today was a strangely keen day for 3^rd team cricket, it is not often that both sides are at the pitch an hour and a quarter before the start time, preparing, practicing and even, dare I say it, conducting fielding drills!!  This professionalism set the stall out for the rest of the game contested by two well prepared, good quality sides and played in a friendly, competitive and fair manner by all the PLAYERS involved.

I lost the toss for the 17^th consecutive time and we were inserted, we got off to a good start against a strong North Middlesex bowling attack, a bit too good for their umpire who decided to end Bobs outing with the score on 29 from 6 overs.  This turned into 58-3 from 18 overs, with James Turner not troubling the scorers and Chairman (the) making a good return to the 3’s with a plucky 18 before wafting like a twat at a wide one.

Our second new player Steve Watts and myself then took the score on to 120, Steve played some bold attacking shots and fitted in to the side very well, we look forward to seeing more of him when he is next available.  I was next to fall for a 57 managed with the help of Thommo’s magic wand (make of that what you will, but I meant his bat) with the score on 130 for 5.  We then began to collapse and were very soon 150-9 from 40 overs, however a battling last wicket partnership of 84 between Tom Brimble and John Scantlebury gave us the total of 234 from 59 overs.

In reply they started strongly and although we checked their progress due to some fantastic keeping by Guy Nicholson, some pacey bowling from the Mad Dog and some ‘same old same old’ from Matt ‘wickets’ Buckley the game was still in the balance, with their opener keeping them up with the run rate.

The spell of the day for us was from John Scantlebury who produced seam and bounce which left their middle order dazed and confused, this was also helped by some solid slip catching from Bob.  Once we had dismissed their opener and overs were running out the draw was the only result to play for, unfortunately they got the winning draw and we had to settle for a point, but overall I think a draw was a fair result from a good contest between two well matched teams.

We can take a lot of positives into next week, the introduction of new players who showed promise, the return to form of John Scantlebury, our commitment both during the game and the way in which we approached it before hand.  Fantastic character was shown by numbers 10 and 11, and I think a good team atmosphere is building and a realization that we are a strong side capable of promotion if we continue to work hard for each other and keep giving consistent availability.

However, to achieve this I believe we need to improve some areas of our game, our over rate must improve to pressure the opposition, our bowlers must sort out the No-ball situation, and we must impose ourselves on the opposition and let them know that we think we are a quality side. I’m sure that we will keep improving week after week and look forward to our trip to Uxbridge, who like us are unbeaten.

Report by: The Beef