Thwarted by the rain

Horton once again won the toss and elected to bowl, and took wickets at regular intervals through openers Will Knibbs (2-42) and Matt Chalcraft. The latter in particular produced some fine deliveries in his opening spell and finished with a well deserved 4-58.

When Karan Parmar was introduced he took 2 quick wickets including the dangerous Adil Arif, and Geddington were reduced to 111/7. The next wicket was a long time coming, with the 8th wicket pair putting on 71. Thanks largely to young off spinner Cameron Blake and the fielding of Matt Mills, both on debut, the run rate never escalated out of control. Cameron finished with an extremely economical 2-27 from 13.5 overs.

Geddington were bowled out for 188 in the 48th over, meaning Horton would have 52 overs to chase down the target, Unfortunately, due to a prolonged rain break and the league rules, we were subsequently left with 37 overs to chase down the same target of 189.

The openers negotiated some testing new ball bowling, in particular from Adil Arif, and their partnership of 56 laid the perfect platform for the attacking middle order to go after the spin attack of Geddington in pursuit of the win. Aditya Gupta, also on debut, played some flamboyant shots in his 21, but when he saw his off stump emphatically cartwheeled by Arif, we still needed 107 to win at around 6 an over. Andrew Neate joined Karan Parmar and they continued to push on, putting on 49 before Karan was dismissed for an excellent 65.

Some tight bowling from Geddington seamer Jack Parker (3-22) was making runs hard to come by from one end, but each batsman kept pushing for runs before we ultimately came up 8 short. Neate once again performed well, finishing 49 not out.

Whilst it was extremely frustrating for the lads to come away with 14 points which could, and would, have been 20 if not for the weather, there were plenty of positives to take from the game and hopefully we can take those into the second half of the season where the format now switches to win/lose.

Next week we face Brixworth at Denton Road.