2nd XI - A great result in the oasis of Wollaston

Rocking up to Wollaston with the nearest player in age some circa 14 years younger, the gut feel was that we may be up for a rough ride against a full line up of league stalwarts, who have had a very strong season so far.

Having surveyed the track and thinking nobody will want to bat first on this today, we eloquently lost the toss to find out they wanted to have a bat. In hindsight maybe it was our day finally.

The bonus of double tiffin had obviously added fuel to the team and the opening strike force of Knibbs.T and Robinson. Disco was a pleasure to watch. Robinson almost impossible to get of the wicket and Tommo finding his stride between his 2nd and 8th over. At one stage we saw something rarer in our field than a sighting of the Lochness Monster with 3 slips 2 gullies and a silly mid-on and off. The mood was good. Tom Knibbs was unplayable at times and excelled with figures of 5 for 16 runs, 10 overs 5 maidens. The support from Dan Robbo the other end certainly played a significant part in clearing away the first five. An excellent partnership. Especially with Toms hangover.

Everyone else chipped in with 1 wicket each, the skipper with awful half trackers, the Angry Kardashian with an indifferent set of 6 overs and the future stars Vish and Zane getting one each. Vish was exceptional in his 6 overs and should have come away with more, he’s been excellent for the last 3 weeks and is becoming a very good asset to this team. Zane showed some excellent promise for the future, a great action and if he’d had more time I’m certain he would have made even more of an impact on his debut. After 35 overs we had dismissed Wollaston for 147 runs an excellent, excellent first half display. Proof that if we put it together, we can compete to win this league rather than be the other end.

Going into the second half we had the returning K.Das and the inform Vinny to open. Both were set a task and executed it very well until Vinny just getting a popper as he chipped his leg glance to square leg. He was starting to look unstoppable. Advancing to the crease was the ever ice cool M.Richardson who once again seemed to get the decent nuts of the day that moved dramatically from left to right and occasional popped to keep in it interesting. He battled for 45 runs before hitting a very strong shot that seemed to stop against the gale force wind down at deep mid-on. K.Das had executed his role brilliantly and was still in and proving difficult to get out. The skipper for the day entered the field and spent the 10 or so overs with Das to ensure we were on track to secure the victory. Shortly after K.Das left the field, it was definitely out, it’s probably a shot he won’t play again! : ) However, he executed his role brilliantly. To join myself at the crease next was the ‘Angry’ Kardashian, striking the ball superbly, playing sensibly to the straight ball and showing signs of superb maturity, plenty of runs from him to come this year. We completed the task having demonstrating a very good bowling and fielding performance and backed up by a sensible and mature batting performance.

A special thanks to Chloe Kardashian (chilled out, nicer Kardashian) the other Knibbs sister, Harry who were part of spoils and didn’t bat or bowl, the unsung heros as their fielding, enthusiasm and support was more of a part of this win than they probably feel.

Highlights of the day – T.Knibbs 5 wickets, M Richardson 45, K.Das 1 run after thirty overs(we thought the score board was broken, but brilliantly well done), 3 slips, 2 gulleys short mid on and off and batting with the Angry Kardashian (An experience you could probably make a tourist attraction!)

Well done, next job please fellas! Thanks to Trev once again an absolute pleasure to have out there week to week!