After a couple of late withdrawals on Friday and Saturday we had two new debutants for the club, being Max Wrights younger brother Harry and family friend of Damon Greeney young 16 year old Sam.

At 12:40 Vishua only had 3 players present while we were getting changed and warming up more of the opposition turned up. We were being skippered by Chris Rodern Smith for the first time in a Ploughmans competitive match. The two skippers went out to the middle and tossed and we were sent into the field. With a strong bowling attack we weren’t too worried and knew we would have to bowl and field well early to be able to win the game.

Both of the opposition openers made their intentions clear early with swinging through the line of the ball and taking risks. We dropped a few catch’s early and an LBW decision that didn’t go our way although it appeared their umpire had given the batter out and he was walking until the umpire said “I didn’t give him out”. This batsman had more twitches than Steve Smith with doing up his gloves at least 10 times before he’d take his guard and adjusting both pads before every ball.

At the halfway point Vishua were 2-125, playing 35 overs. CRS gave a great captains talk at drinks really emphasising that the next 10 overs were really important and we had to win that to peg back and be able to chase down the target.. When the debutant Sam entered the attack with his off spin he bowled very well with control and helped reduce the scoring rate, taking 1/40 from seven overs.

This saw a great bowling partnership between, Karl Damon and Chris who did a great job in pulling back the scoring. Carl bowled exceptionally well all the training he had been putting in is paying dividends, he was the pick of the bowlers finishing with 3 for 30 from six overs and also a run out while bowling.

Clearly yours truly, Simon Crane and Wright had all had the same water at drinks as we struggled with our bowling and bowled a lot of extras between the 3 of us, Sunny Dries was Vishua CC second highest score with 50 which included 47- wides and no balls and eight extra overs in 35 over match was always going to have us chasing a big total Vishua CC were all out in the 35th over for 272.

A good spread of Egg and salad and Tuna and Mayo sandwiches at tea time and some other lovely sweat treats thanks Jacki. At the same time it took Max Wright and Karl the entire tea break to balance their score book and the batting, bowling and the overall score didn’t match or the difference couldn't be worked out.

Britto and Hanzi opened, going at just under 8 an over which is what we needed to score at to be a chance of winning the game. Unfortunately Hanzi was dismissed in the 4th over caught at gully from one that kicked off a length and caught his gloves, he was looking great for his 12 and played one of the shots of the day with a glorious cover drive for four. Britto was joined by George Tunnacliffe and was bowled for 6. CRS joined Britto and really got the rate ticking along and putting 60 on for the fourth wicket, before being caught at mid wicket trying to increase the run rate.

Enter the middle Max Wright who showed great intent from ball one hitting 3 consecutive fours and putting pressure back on Vishua CC and making them having to make changes consistently although they were doing this every ball and really took their time in the field.. Max really stepped up in the middle to late overs and took pressure off Britto who batted very well for his 70, Max then took control of the match and continued to bat beautifully with debutant Sam who ended up being caught behind for 9, Unfortunately left with too much to do and not enough time we had an uphill battle , however Max continued to smash them to all parts of the ground, a mix up with the scorers had Max celebrate his maiden 50 when he was actually on 48. Little did we know it wasn’t right and he then proceeded to scoop the opening bowler for four to bring up his legitimate 50, not sure who would have given him the 2 runs should he had got out before this but never the less it wasn’t an issue in the end. Max ended up being stumped off a 12 year old for his highest ever score of 60 off 49 balls.

Was a great team effort and we were very well skippered by CRS, unfortunately we ended up 50 short which was the difference in extras we bowled. Plough on - T-Rex

Match report produced by Trent Catanzariti