1STS HAMMER EGERTON BUT 2S LOSE OUT IN THRILLER

The 1sts marched on with another comprehensive win against a weakened Egerton side. Having won the toss, the visitors chose to bat but were up against it right from the start as Ry Wilkes produced a brute of a delivery that the opener could only spoon up to Clive, and followed it by knocking over the stumps next ball. 1-2 and we were up and running.

There was a curiously flat atmosphere early on, yet Ry picked up a 3rd wicket when skipper Howarth was bowled playing a very loose shot. Veterans Barlow and Cumberbatch dug in for a while amid mounting pressure, but when Marshy joined the party to trap Barlow LBW the floodgates opened. The middle order disintegrated from 40-3 to 44-8, before young Partington showed some bottle to play out a few overs and show a straight bat. Marshy claimed his 5th wicket before final man Rawsthorne was run out by a direct hit from Paul. Si ended with 5-24, while Ry Wilkes picked up 4-24 from a very hostile spell.

Having turned straight round, KC and Bret got us off to a quick start in pursuit of our target of 58 before Bret played on with the score at 27. Doc joined KC and hit a couple of boundaries before finding mid off, and then Stoney joined the resilient KC (23*) to get us over the winning line and record an 8 wicket win with maximum points inside 2 hours. Cumberbatch bowled a good spell and was unlucky not to pick up a wicket or two with his tricky left armers.

The 2s meanwhile had a narrow defeat at Bamford, which included a revised D/L target. Match comments were provided by Leigh D, and we've also included feedback from a couple of the younger players.

The 2s can be described as "a work in progress", as they didn’t win a very, very good and interesting game of cricket with the D/L score arguably making it more favourable for the home team batting second. Dicko posted an unbeaten 81, but became more constrained later on in the innings as wickets fell, meaning that the overall total could possibly have been higher. He also felt that his timing was off, meaning that sweeps were going for 1s and 2s instead of 4s. Danny Ash continued his decent Saturday form, making a good 45* before trying to hit the ball a bit too hard. Danielle was unlucky to get a brutish delivery that thudded into her hip then flicked the top of middle - it had to hurt! Haysey also "played all round a straight one after a good start" (no comment from your webmaster who has done that enough times, though clearly Mr Cricket Chairman needs to put his readers on!)

* Danny's innings came in 38 minutes, from 36 balls, a strike rate of 125, with 7 fours. Danny has played football in the Evo-stik league, and according to his Facebook profile attended Elton High School - in Louisiana. He's a Sagittarius, which makes him "curious and energetic", though many Sagittarians have a great sense of humour too. Not sure what happened there. (Is that enough, Dan, or do you want bigging up some more?)

Still, a total of 188 was competitive, but ought to have been higher. However, despite the revised target, this was a game we should have won - though credit to Bamford's middle order for getting the job done. The Totts bowling was good but body language and commitment wasn't good enough, with runs lost when more sharpness would have solved it. Interestingly, the same issue afflicted the 1sts for a spell early in the game, but this fortunately didn't prove costly. Lots of games are won and lost on small margins, and we gave a good Bamford side a real run for their money. Leigh feels that he should have got a century and we could have saved at least 20 to 30 runs in the field with more care - we continue to work hard on training nights but all round this needs to improve.

Onto next week, with both sides keen to progress.