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Full of confidence after last week’s win, Frindsbury arrived at The Alps, Rochester, to find that once again the opposition had not brought an umpire and would have to forfeit the toss.   Skipper Nigel Blown had little hesitation in electing to bat first, and despite the early loss of Alex Carr looked to have made the right call as Dave Gracey (18) and Sunny Singh (17) took the score along to 40-1. 

However the Frindsbury batting never really got going, and a succession of batsmen came and went despite looking comfortable against an attack lacking any real pace on a pitch that offered little help to the bowlers.  Of the middle order, only Raj Bassi (15) reached double figures as the score limped along to a precarious 108-9 and Nigel Blown joined George Burt at the crease. 

Burt junior had batted with real maturity to hold the innings together up to this point, and with his skipper at his side continued in the same vein to help add a vital 46 runs for the last wicket.   Holborough’s earlier suggestion that maybe we should take tea after the match had finished looked frankly rather daft as Blown (12) and Burt (38 not out) piled on the runs and took the visitors to a defendable 154 before the skipper miscalculated a quick single (or maybe decided that the tea that had been set up pitch-side looked rather nice) and was run out.  The Burt/Blown partnership had transformed to mood in the dressing room (well, I say dressing room……..) and with a strong bowling attack on hand Frindsbury took tea with renewed con fidence and a spring in their metaphorical step. 

The bowling and fielding performance that followed was simply awesome.  The fielding was sharp and lively, with the colts in particular in fine form. George Burt prowled around in front of square leg umpire like a caged tiger waiting to pounce, and young Alex Carr was simply superb at point – letting nothing past and keeping pressure on the batsmen at all times.  All the front-line bowlers caused problems for Holborough – Raj Bassi (5-1-5-0) swung the ball miles and was pretty much unplayable, Pete Ashenden (5.2-2-12-3) managed to find pace and bounce that nobody else had been able to, Sunny Singh (6-2-8-1) was superb and could easily have had a five-fer on another day.  

Despite a lack of real turn in the pitch Dave Tomlin (9-2-30-3) bamboozled a succession of batsmen with his Enigma Variations, taking a wicket with his first ball thanks to a diving (yes really) catch in front of the stumps (again, yes – really) by Peters and removing the dangerous Rudland for a duck.  He also fell on the ball, which hurt – a lot.

Ray Burt was then introduced by the skipper (which was rather pointless, as we all knew who he was) and transferred his excellent Sunday form to Saturday league cricket, recording figures of 5-1-6-3.  Pete Ashenden wrapped things up by removing Brooks, who offered a catch to the safe hands of Harry Horsfall to leave Holborough all out for just 81 and Frindsbury with back-to-back wins.

Rob Peters

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