North London 3’s Vs Hornsey
This was a must win game for us, Hornsey are near the bottom and we had a strong team out. However the weather forecast was very dodgy and the 2’s game had already been called off, nevertheless we made sure we started the game and hoped we would get some fortune from the toss of the coin and the rain gods, luckily we did and they had to bat first.
John Scantlebury and Mark Lewis ripped through the top order including their overseas player who had scored 120 in 60 balls the previous week, after 8 overs they were 30 for 6 and we were thinking of a nice early finish. We took our foot off the gas a little and allowed ‘Mr. Cable’ a young lad with a lot off potential to show how to accumulate runs by batting sensibly, he, together with North Middlesex exile David Griffiths who scored a very good 62 put on 100 for the 6th wicket, then came the old adage, ‘there’s always a wicket after drinks’ in this case 4 quick ones, John Scantlebury came back into the attack, bowled two pearlers and got rid of both of the partnership makers, Scants and Mark then mopped up the juice as the oppo went from 130 for 6 to 136 all out.
In reply we decided to juggle the batting order around using Guy Nicholson as an opener, he did his job and got the score off to a good start before gifting a catch to point. Then entered Ian Dobson, or as Chairman refers to him ‘the character that Disney forgot to draw’, Ian and myself took the score up to 96, Ian playing some fluent cricket shots and looking in control, and me using every inch of edge on the bat, however it was Ian who fell next for a classy 31. Debutant Daniel king was next to the crease, he had earlier taken a superb catch off a no-ball from Scants and from the moment he walked out he seemed quite comfortable at the crease, and it was surprising to see him bowled for 12. With 20 runs to get, I finally started to hit the middle of the bat and 6 balls later we had won the game.