The teams agreed to play to “Stockbury Rules”, whereby the team batting first bats for 2½ hours, and the team batting second bats for 1 hour plus twenty overs.The team fielding second has to bowl out the opposition in order to win.
Frindsbury won the toss and elected to bat first on a hot and sunny afternoon.The opening partnership of Sam Collis and Dan Tadman was soon broken, but skipper Rob Peters and young Collis batted through to the drinks break to give the innings a solid foundation.Peters departed immediately after the break, edging an attempted square cut to the safe hands of Pearson at first slip, and Sunny Singh went first ball - attempting to pull a short one from Bullbrook into the road but succeeding only in lofting a simple catch to former Frindsbury colt Nick Emery.At this point Stockbury, who had been on the end of a Sunny battering earlier in the season, no doubt felt that this was the key breakthrough, but the Frindsbury middle order had other ideas.
Steve Bassett negotiated the hat-trick ball safely, and went on to bat through the remaining overs, compiling a fine 43 not out.Sam Collis, who continues to impress with each innings, compiled a text-book 27 including some fine cover drives, and Harry Horsfall (31) battered the tiring bowlers with a series of typical blows.Ray Burt fell trying to accelerate the score towards the end, but Raj “Classy” Bassi scored a majestic 19 not out in partnership with the ever-improving Bassett and helped take the total through to a competitive 178-6 froma pedestrian 36 overs.Nick Emery was the pick of the Stockbury bowlers with figures of 9-3-25-3.
A pickle-free tea was then taken, after which Frindsbury set about defending their score.Opening bat Pearson, fresh from scoring a double-century last week, was the obvious danger man, and by manipulating (i.e. hogging) the strike looked likely to score most of the runs by himself in rapid time.Having been battered somewhat in his first four overs on a pitch offering him little help, Ray Burt suggested he try an over of spin bowling, and with Peters now standing up he tempted Pearson into trying one too many swipes across the line and induced a top edge that was snapped up by the keeper.Inspired bowling once again by the Strollers’ leading wicket-taker, and suddenly Frindsbury were very much back in it.A double bowling change then followed, and the combination of the dependable Raj Bassi (5-2-10-2) and the excellent Dan Carter (6-1-8-1) bowling in tandem brought the strike rate back down, and pretty much removed any realistic chance of a successful run chase.Following on from his successful senior debut last week, Carter once again showed his huge potential in a fine spell of bowling.
However Stockbury skipper Roger Milton was being as resolute as usual, and while the required run rate was getting higher, so the number of overs left to take the remaining wickets was running out fast.Another hour of watching this was not what was needed, so skipper Peters decided to try to lure the opposition into playing something resembling an attacking stroke by introducing the two Tadmans.Terminator John did the trick in his third over by tempting Milton into a pull shot that resulted in him falling onto his stumps after failing to get his leg over.
That left Frindsbury with six overs in which to take five wickets.Who does a skipper turn to in such times of need?The task of removing half the opposition in 36 balls or less was allocated to Ray Burt and Sunny Singh.Neither disappointed, and in the event they needed only 4.4 overs to wrap up the victory.Burt added a further two wickets to his tally – including a caught and bowled - to finish with figures of 7-0-39-3, and Singh (2.4-0-4-3) was just too good as he first removed the aggressive Sellens for 24, then along with Burt rattled through the tail to give the home side victory by 47 runs.
Thanks to Anita for running the bar, and to Kath Tadman and the Good Mrs Peters for providing an excellent tea.
