NEW BOWLING MACHINE MAKES ITS DEBUT

Feverish anticipation greeted the unveiling of the new bowling machine down at Crompton Meadows last night. With the expert trio of Ryan Stoney, Rick Carr and Doc P attentively peering over the components, the unit was soon up and assembled and ferried over to the nets. After less than a minuteof fiddling with buttons, dials and knobs, the machine was soon serving up a tasty mix of inswingers, devilish outswing, and screaming yorkers, all to the accompanying soundtrack of oohs and aaahs from the lads. Around a dozen folk had a go against the machine, and the device was judged a massive success, especially when Marshy had his stumps rattled and shouted "how fast is that thing set at?" in an indignant tone. "58 mph" retorted Dasher to general hilarity.

On a serious note, the acquisition of the bowling machine will reap enormous benefits, enabling one on one practice sessions, freeing up lads to do fielding practice or other drills, and to quickly serve the batters up with quality practice regardless of the number of bowlers present. A fantastic boost for the club. Plus the sight of Dasher feeding balls into a device he couldn't see over the top of was worth attending by itself!