Following last week’s abandonment due the wonderful weather we have been experiencing lately. We welcomed our landlords to the wok for an eagerly awaited local derby! Dartford 5ths kindly produced a tea that was greatly received at the interval. Following the toss/pre-agreement, we were asked to bowl. Early results suggested this youthful looking Dartford side wouldn’t be a pushover, and so it proved early on as myself and Kuldeep opened the bowling, whilst keeping it tight, wickets were not forthcoming. Eventually a bad call for two resulted in the first wicket as the opener was runout. 1 became 2 as Mike Chung came on to bowl and trapped the Number 3 plumb in front. Adith came on to bowl and after a nervous first over settled in well and caused plenty of issues for the batsmen and was unlucky to remain wicketless in his spell.
Ryan replaced Adith and struck almost immediately with a ct & bowled and followed that quickly with another, one of the openers was still in and was starting to accelerate as best he could with the little support he was getting. Ram came on next, fresh from his attempted murder charge the week before. After a loose first over and a great diving attempt from Candyman in the covers which didn’t quite stick, Ram produced a great spell to rattle through the lower order of Dartford including the opener for 44. Candyman finally redeemed himself as he took the final catch of the innings and thus giving Ram a superb five wicket haul and he finished with 6.3-2-23-5, Dartford finished on a gettable 93 all out.
Tea was instantly devoured, and Vice set about organizing the batting order. The innings would be opened by Lord Rossington himself & the returning Blainey, I was assigned scoring duties in the absence of Paul & his beloved scorebook, so had to make do with a black biro and printed scorecard on A4 paper. After a steady few overs we had reached 15 without loss, before Rossington called for a run off a wide and was run out from Fine leg by a direct hit from a ten year old for 9! This slightly humorous wicket was the start of a monumental collapse of epic proportions. 9 would turn out to be the highest score of the innings, as no batsmen got in, 15-0, quickly became 23-5 as the top order disintegrated under the accurate bowling, Cammo registered a duck as did last weeks hero Harry. Ryan’s new bat failed to get off the mark before Stumpy followed for 8 and Mike was caught for 7. Paul turned up to score the tail end of the innings, but sadly it was for all of 2 minutes as I joined the duck club of the day slashing one to gully. All out for 41, a sorry day with the bat against the accurate bowling of the Dartford youngsters and a few old heads thrown in as well.
Unsurprisingly Ram won POTD for his 5-wicket haul, whilst SBOTD went to… I can’t remember as I am writing this weeks after the sorry tale, could well be the batting performance from the rest of us. Ah well there is always next week to put it right… The only way is up!!!!
– Rich