It was with an air of trepidation that Frindsbury arrived at Stockbury.This was understandable given that last season Stockbury had inflicted upon the visitors a humiliating defeat as well as the worst tea known to man.Skipper Peters asked if things had changed this year.Unfortunately it seemed the teas were still as bad as ever, and Stockbury had a stronger team.The stage was therefore set for a tough encounter (and that was just the corned beef sandwiches).
Frindsbury won the toss and chose to bat, and this soon looked to be a questionable decision as Tom Burbrook (5-3-9-1) and Frindsbury old-boy Nick Emery (4-2-11-0) produced an excellent opening spell of bowling, getting plenty of bounce from the lively track and proving difficult to get away.After the early loss of Matt Palmer a settling-in period was required. Rob Peters (27) and Sunny Singh saw off the openers before setting about the bowling to put on 93 runs together and take the score to a healthy 94-1 after 15 overs.
The curse of the drinks break then induced a lapse in concentration from the skipper, who lofted a simple catch to Emery at mid-on.Thereafter, while Singh carried on despatching balls into the surrounding gardens the rest of the batsmen struggled to cope with the pitch.A succession of ducks was entered into the scorebook, and only the classy Raj “Shirley” Bassi (25) looked remotely comfortable until Paul Dunne joined Sunny to add an entertaining 20 off all parts of his bat and to all parts of the ground.
Luckily for Frindsbury, Sunny was on top form and proceeded to reach a well-deserved 100 off just 65 balls.He went on to score 116 before being bowled by the impressive Pearson (6-3-10-2) and Frindsbury ended their 40 overs on 222 all out.The innings had taken a marathon 3 hours to complete, largely due to the fielding side having to knock on various front doors to ask if we could have our ball back.For those statisticians amongst you, Sunny hit a total of 23 fours and two sixes in his knock, with twelve singles and unusually (not!) no twos or threes.
We then headed nervously to the local pub for tea.Amazingly we found not just the usual corned beef and cheese and onion sandwiches (that’s two different types by the way, not a bizarre new mega-sandwich), but also sausage rolls and some “exceedingly good” apple pies.And one jam tart.The boat had been well and truly pushed out.
Matt Palmer opened the bowling for Frindsbury and bowled quite superbly with pace and movement to record excellent analysis of 4-3-3-2 including skipper Pearson, who looked likely to cause considerable damage if he’d hung around.Nigel Blown opened up at the other end and took a couple himself, including a sharp(ish) caught-and-bowled.Ray Burt (4-1-6-2) continued his fine run of form with the bal and exploited the pitch to great effect, and Dan Tadman picked up a couple courtesy of a nice catch by Paul Dunne and a smart piece of work behind the stumps by Rob Peters.Once again the fielding was of fine quality, with only one misfiled during the innings.Even that led to a wicket thanks to Paul Dunne, who picked up the loose ball and fired it in to the stumps for Peters to whip off the bails and effect a sharp run out.
It was then left to John “Terminator” Tadman to finish things off by luring Bulbrook into mis-timing one to Raj Bassi at mid-on.Stockbury had slumped to just 46 all out, and Frindsbury had secured another fine win.
