End of the 1st XI's Winning Streak

With a damp wicket, the track looked like it'd be a bowler's paradise. Sadly for us, Papplewick called the toss correctly and unsurprisingly elected to bowl first. Also, sadly for us Papplewick have one of the best bowlers in the league who was pretty much unplayable for the next hour, taking 8-18 which reduced us to 31 for 9. Not much you can say really other than he was simply too good in very bowler friendly conditions. We were saved from total disaster by Ben Tomlinson (28) and, last man standing, Simon Dean (26*). Together, they put on a heroic last wicket stand of 58 to give us something to cheer, and a batting bonus point too! We finished 89 all out from 33 overs.

We've defended smaller totals in recent years, so we went out with a positive mindset. We struck in the first over when Mark Dean (4 overs, 1-11) had one of the openers caught at short mid wicket in bizarre fashion. The ball went straight at Simon Bingham, who instead of catching it with his hands, let the ball whack him straight on the forehead! The ball looped up and fortunately Bingo managed to steady himself and catch the ball as it came back down! Bizarre... Anyway, the opposition were now 3-1 and we were on our way.
In the next few overs we induced a number of play and misses from the batsmen, but we were out of luck and sure enough Papplewick progressed without further loss and secured a 9 wicket win. We stuck at it in the field and thanks to Simon and Ben's efforts earlier in the day, we at least managed to give our bowlers a few overs each.

Today was just one of those days. The 1st XI will play in their final fixture of the season away at Mansfield CC next weekend, where they hope to finish in a positive way.