It is becoming a theme of the Sunday team in recent weeks that the team should have a moment in the game when they think they are going to win it, only to have their candyfloss blown away when the sweet bite of victory is being prepared. Same thing here, just a Great Glen candyfloss this time
Fleckney had suffered a late drop out, and I mean late. As in last lemming stumbling out of the pub and falling off the cliff late. Young Jake Evans injuring his ankle kicking the old pigs bladder about earlier on in the day and therefore leaving the home side a player short.
The stand in skipper (Scooter being at the King Power watching the pig bladder being kicked about) toyed with batting first, lost the toss as per usual and was asked to bat anyway. Everyone, at this stage at least, was a winner.
Yak and Mike Hextall got the home side off to a solid start but it was Yak who grabbed the attention with a beautiful 58 mixing straight hitting, late dabs and leisurely singles. Arj continued the fun with a quick scoring cameo of his own including one picture perfect straight 6. Heck, Kev even ran a 3. It was fun for all the family festival type cricket.
The difficulty was that the Fleckney batting were here for a good time not a long time and just when the team needed to sprint to the end of innings party it was metaphorically slumped in the back of a cab as the more stoic members of the batting unit were left to see out time. 190 all out of the last ball of the innings was not be sneezed at however.
And so onto the reply. Two fine takes in the deep from Samit, a pearling grab in the slips by Mike and a fall forward effort from Kev all helped, but it felt all the way through like it was just going to end up in the sort of sweaty palm finish you only truly enjoy afterwards if you get the win.
Every time one side grabbed the initiative either a wicket fell or quick runs came. Poor Sam Hill in particular took some undeserved but brutal treatment with three maximums hit off him in one over, the last two so big that if there had been a fixture in play it might have signalled attempted murder of the bowls team next door. Said batsman then ran past one and had the misfortune to be stumped, he will never know how unlucky he was.
And so onto the star of the show Sam Baverstock.He had opened the bowling and was universally described as 'sharp' by those who had faced him. Indeed there had been more playing and missing than the blindfold swingball team. One opener literally had the bruises to tell the tale. The big question was this, could he bat?
Dear reader, you probably know what is going to be written next. It's fair to say he played a blinder. Kept his cool in the early stages then hit the accelerator with four scoop shots off middle and leg in particular that linger in the memory . It was galling to see the game slip away but all you could really say was, "Well batted mate". 53 not out his final tally and Glen had got home by 3 wickets.
It's a massive thank you to Glen for playing the game the right way, to Kev for constant pigs bladder score updates on the last day of the season, for Twinkle for not crying when Liverpool didn't win the league and for Matt for turning up and fielding simply to help the club out.
Onto the next....