Walsham Le Willows CC vs. Little Bardfield Village CC
Date: 17th August 2024
Venue: Walsham Le Willows
Toss: Little Bardfield won the toss and chose to bat
The brave souls of Little Bardfield made the long and arduous journey across Essex and into the depths of Suffolk to battle it out with Walsham Le Willows for an important 20 points. A couple of the away side arrived to the find a football pitch and wondered if they had come to the wrong place with not a Walsham-er in sight but the home lads began arriving.
Skipper Rory "Rosco" Hitchcock walked out with the Walsham captain to toss and returned making the internationally known hand signal for "Batting". A slight change to the opening today, with Matt Graham off enjoying a birthday trip to the spa his elder brother Tom filled his size 8 spikes and joined Rosco to start things off. Things started slow with the pitch offering both a mix of bounce and balls that kept exceptionally low which kept things interesting but difficult to get into a scoring rhythm.
Walsham took the scalp of Rosco (5) first, with an Ashley Forbes delivery, his replacement Callum Hymas (0) didn't hang around for long as he was caught out by a ball that cut in viciously sending his bails flying. The younger of the Hymas' claiming he could face that delivery 30 times and it would get him out every single time. Bardfield hoped that the experience of Daryl Hymas (0) would shine through and help add runs to the board but alas it was not to be, he too caught out by a ball that cut in and caught him by surprise.
Next out was Bilal Hotak, making is second appearance for the Oxlips and after his debut of 39 runs from 21 balls had the hopes of the onlooking LBVCC team high for a repeat performance. He didn't disappoint with a spirited 26 runs, including 2 large 6's but eventually he was dismissed by a delivery from Mark Rothon. Whilst all this had been happening Tom Graham (28) had been pottering about tickling his runs up quietly in the background but Rothon added him to his total as well.
Rothon tore through the Bardfield lower order picking up the wickets of Will Slemmings (6), Stuart Noble-Conner (4), Sam Goodfellow (0) and Jordan Sheehan (0). This left Bardfield speed merchant Jahan Zadram (AKA Wheels) at the crease alongside an LBVCC debutant Safi Mujahid. Both put on a fine partnership of 53 from 35 balls, helping the Oxslips pick up some a couple of important batting bonus points along the way. The Bardfield innings was ended from a ball by George MacRae, taking the wicket of Safi and giving Bardfield a total of 142.
Walsham opened with a batsman known as TC 33 (31) in PlayCricket (believe his surname was Cass but memories going in my old age) and Joe Scarce (0). Jahan made light work of Scarce, bowling him clean on the final ball of the 1st over. TC 33 and Jason Smithers (25) went to work cranking up the home sides total until Safi took his 1st wicket for the club. An excellent (said in Mr Burns voice) ball sent Smithers back to Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in the 15th over. Not to be outshone Bilal got involved with a great delivery, sending Joe Bryant (9) back to the changing room.
With 7 wickets left to take for Bardfield or 45 runs needed by Le Willows to win the game, the boys needed to get moving. Tom sent another mystery name TJ 00 (who amusingly only scored 0) packing and in his next over TC 33, the home side were 123/5 and the Oxslips felt a glimmer of hope.
This was quickly extinguished as Ashley Forbes (17*) and Ethan Dobing (14*) saw Walsham home with calm heads.
A winless August so far for Little Bardfield but with Ipswich visiting the Fortress this coming weekend the boys are confident they can turn the losing streak around and finish the season strong