Great all round display worthy of the IPL!

The Saturday morning arrived, with H promising to be early. It just about happened!! With no tea lady about Skipper Smirnoff made sure the teams were well catered for. Now they were so good this report could be just about the teas…..but alas there was cricket to play.

It was good to see all the first team turning up and all pulling their weight…even ‘Boom Boom’ Mali was helping with the rope! There was an expectation that Botany Bay would turn up with their star man a certain Abhishek Jhunjhunwala who represents Ragasthan Royals in the IPL. Bring it on!!!

He didn’t show! Smirnoff was making sure that the team were focused and ready to achieve the goal of 30 points.

Smirnoff lost the toss and on what looked like a decent wicket the Bay’s skipper elected to bat. Alex ‘Cassie’ Goring opened the bowling alongside Dutchy, and immediately stuck with what was an unplayable delivery! Early strike for the E’s. Number 2 and 3 set about scoring rather quickly and putting pressure on the fielders. Dutchy was swapped ends and the AshrafulExpress was bought on from the Holland End. Now the carnage began, AshrafulExpress was coming in on the back of a good finish last week and duly picks up 4 wickets. In between these wickets Sat Nav has a very good delivery caught behind from the OE’s version of Jack Russell standing up, never easy but not a problem for a man of his calibre! After this blast from the OE’s dynamic duo, Botany Bay were sitting at 75-5.

Some big hitting took the AshrafulExpress out of the attack but it was only a matter of time before Dutchy struck, taking 2 in an over before Sat Nav wrapped up the last wicket.

Wickets shared around and once again the OE’s first XI produced a great fielding display. Down to you batsman 110 to get. And as the Bay’s innings was over so quickly Smirnoff’s tea with the assistance of a butter knife to cut the melon, and some great maturity from Olay was to wait for 10 overs.

So Kappa and Clive (who looked like he was on a gallon of red bulls in the field) went out and happily stroked the ball around with ease, until Clive received a questionable leg before decision bringing Sat Nav to the crease immediately looking very comfortable.  Kappa again getting a start before mistiming a pull shot, bringing in a new 4 and 5 to the frame. Dunne didn’t hang about receiving a good ball knocking  back his off stump, but Boom Boom did anything but this as a nice measured innings saw OE’s to the brink of victory before Smirnoff joined Sat Nav (who hit an enormous 6!) to see off the remaining runs and give us another 30 points!

Top effort and onwards to Langlebury where with a strong outfit the team are full of confidence pushing for a big finish to the end of the summer!