On Wednesday, the Midweek XI traveled to Alkham Valley for a T20 match. Eastry won the toss, and skipper Gareth Friend elected to field, putting the home team in on a seemingly erratic track. Friend’s suspicions were confirmed as the first over from Gleave saw balls viciously popping off of a length and troubling the batsmen greatly. Whilst pitch seemed to assist the bowlers, wickets were hard to come by and the Tomkins raced to 59, dispatching bowlers Deveson and Kenton with Ease to the tiny boundary. Indeed the first wicket did not come until the 17th over when Dawkins had Tomkies caught by Aaron Friend, and had Lee caught by Betts soon after for no score. The Alkham innings was steadied however by Foster who carried his bat for 62, leading the team to 158-3 off of 20 overs, with Eastry contributing a whopping 32 runs in extras.
Needing just under 8 an over to win the openers Friend and Betts went to the crease and created a sturdy base for Eastry to build on with both scoring 24 runs at a quick rate. However it soon became apparent why Alkham were not upset with batting first, as after the first 5 overs the sun began to set behind the bowlers arm, making batting almost impossible. Alkham harnessed the elements to their advantage, bowling as fast as possible to make the most of the glare. iIn the process Anderson took 3 wickets in one over, with Betts (24), A Friend (24) and then Gleave (0) all being bowled after swishing blindly at a seemingly ethereal ball. As the squinting subsided the new partnership of Matt Sear and Harry Kenton came to fruition as Kenton rekindled the run chase by hitting 30 off one over of Foster’s bowling, who appeared to be more than a little annoyed with the situation as he chuntered back to his marker. Kenton reached 56 before Foster had his revenge by catching Kenton at short cover (on the boundary) off the bowling of Hassan, with Matt “Bumsdale” Sear reaching his personal best of 11 runs to a rapturous applause, before also being bowled by Foster. It then fell to Dawkins and Eastman to finish the innings, and they did so comfortably with Dawkins blasting a quick 27 to seal a win with 7 balls to spare.
Matt Deveson – 19/07/2013
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