Frindsbury suffered another disappointing defeat on Saturday despite a fine batting performance from Sam Dudgeon.
With Dudgeon taking a week off from captaining, vice skipper Peter Elswood took the field with a side showing 5 changes from the previous week. Asad and David Evans came up from the III XI , Paul Winchester and Sam Graceyfrom the II XI and Dan Reeves returned from his festival excesses.
Having won the toss and deciding to field Frindsbury made an excellent start with Chris Mumford and the wily Winchester restricting Yalding to just 16-1 off the first 12 overs. Mumford in particular bowled a fast spell to claim the first wicketto fall caught at 2nd slip. Mumford troubled all the Yalding batters with his pace and bounce butFrindsbury were unable to keep the momentum going once the openers were replaced. Hutchins (32) started to hit out after straining a groin and had put on 49 with Walker when he was snaffled at cover by Rob Sait off Shiva.
Walker was then involved in the 2 turning points of the innings. First of all he should have been run out comfortably when he was sent back looking for a quick single but between them Mumford and Shiva messed up the opportunity to enable him to scramble back to the crease. Then he failed to live up to his surname when the whole fielding side wentup for a caught behind off Shiva and he proceeded to make Frindsbury pay by going on to reach 83. He was given excellent support by Rafiq (47) as the Frindsbury attack proceeded to serve up a succession of 4 balls as they went on to blast a 90 run partnership enabling Yalding to post 220 at tea. Frindsbury were not too down hearted as the wicket was playing generally true and the outfield was fast but were left to ponder some expensive bowling figures.
The Frindsbury reply got offto a poor start when both Sait and Evans departed quickly and Dudgeon and Shiva were forced to consolidate in the face of some accurate bowling from Haider and Emmitt. Dudgeon gradually played himself in and then proceeded to take apart the erratic leg spin of Robinson and with some good running with Shiva, took the total over the 100 mark. Shiva (41) then retired with cramp but Dudgeon continued to stroke the ball beautifully to pass 50 for the second time this season and while he was still at the crease and with a number of wickets in hand there was still hope. However, the Frindsbury middle order had other ideas and all fell to a succession of rash shots as they tried to keep up with the required run rate and once Dudgeon went for a fine 73 the game was up leaving Yalding worthy winners on the day.
Not for the first time this season Frindsbury were found wanting at the crucial moments in the gamealthough the constant enforced team changes each week are proving to be a big factor in this.
