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Frindsbury fell to another defeat to rivals Cowdrey but were left fuming at sharp practices transported from a different cricket culture.

Skipper Sam Dudgeon, playing his final game of the season and last captaining the 1^st XI, was able to call upon the services of opening bowlers Chris Mumford and Matt Payne and a batting line-up that was probably as strong as it has been all season.

Electing to field first against the most prolific batting order in the league Frindsbury quickly made inroads with both Payne and Mumford striking early to remove the Cowdrey openers. The game then exploded into life when a devastating burst from Mumford put Frindsbury in the driving seat. First of all he removed Warner who walked when edging 1 behind and then snaffled the prolific Wright for a duck when Dan Scudder pulled off a stunning catch running back from cover point . When he cleaned up the other danger man Hammond without scoring, he had removed 3 batsmen who have scored over 2,000 runs between them this season in the space of 5 balls to leave Cowdrey reeling at 40-5. Mumford was now living up to his reputation as the best bowler in 1A and when he had Aussie Jones caught behind Frindsbury looked like they would dismiss Cowdrey for under a 100. Unfortunately Jones’ background meant he didn’t follow the example set by team mate Warner and refused to walk even though he admitted a couple of overs later that he had indeed touched it.

This unsavoury incident took the wind out of the rampant Frindsbury attack and rather took away from a fine performance from Smyth at the other end. Arriving at the wicket with Cowdrey in deep trouble he went on to play a chanceless innings to finish on 87 not out and with the controversial Jones put on 134 for the 7^th wicket as the bowling side wilted. This partnership was ended when a fine catch from Payne (this time in the deep) to dismiss Jones saw the away side to a remarkable recovery to post an excellent 185. Mumford was by far the best Frindury bowler returning the fine figures of 4-25

Frindsbury would need to bat well on a dry and dusty pitch but were never able to come to grips with some accurate bowling from the Cowdrey bowlers as they slumped to 64-6 with Jones to the fore. Dhaivat, Sait and Blackman were all bowled playing loose shots and only Dudgeon (41) looked comfortable against the league leaders. In fact the rest of the top 5 only managed 14 runs between them, with all of them also being subjected to the verbal side of cricket that Jones seems to enjoy. The scoring rate only increased when Peter Elswood joined Dudgeon and between them they got Frindsbury to three figures and Elswood (41) managed to marshal the tail to ensure that Frindsbury reached the 150 mark.

Jones returned remarkable figures of 6-13 but unfortunately he will be remembered for his lack of manners rather than his performances with bat and ball.

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