After last week’s debacle, and a long week of ringing and messaging people, Bearsted 3s had cobbled together 10 players for the trip to Luddesdown.
A very late phone call from Kian Young who was unexpectedly available meant we had 11 on the team sheet.
Unfortunately two of them did not turn up, so we realised we were playing with 9 again.
It transpires one is incapable of talking to their mother about their selection, and the other needs to buy a decent alarm clock.
With the Vice Skipper and his Dad watching the Rugby Final (acceptable excuse) at Tottenham (unacceptable venue) and the skipper not supposed to be playing (he was doing Ride London the next day and was at a Taylor Swift concert on the Saturday evening) Tim Lush kindly agreed to captain the side.
He won the toss and asked Luddesdown to bat.
We had a fresh faced side with two new youngsters playing their first games for the club.
Evan Surrey, on debut, opened the bowling down the slope. He has a tall classical action and swings it naturally. The steep slope took a bit of getting used to but he soon hit his strides.
Luddesdown had a powerful left hander opening the batting but with the wicket slow he flat batted one to Tim Lush at mid off before he had scored. Unfortunately Lush could not hold onto the chance. We all hoped it wouldn’t be an expensive miss.
Surrey was to return for a second spell and had impressive figures of 7-1-13-3. Two clean bowled and a plumb l.b.w
Kian Young opened from the other end. He also generated swing and bowled an absolute beauty to get the other opener out for a duck. His 8 overs went for only 26 runs with 3 maidens.
Oscar Hollid replaced his mate and also looks a decent bowler. He got a clean bowled and finished with figures of 5-1-26-1.
Isaac Marriner bowled 5 overs with some good deliveries but still needs to work on his consistency. He went for 33 runs.
Mubarik Shah replaced him from the far end and bowled with enthusiasm and generated some movement and pace.
Skipper Lush bought himself on and, after starting with a full bunger, was straight into his rhythm bowling line and length.
He had remarkable figures of 7.2-2-16-5. We look forward to drinking his jug soon.
He was also to dismiss their opener who had hit a fine 76. Eagle eyed readers may recall Mr Lush and their opener featuring earlier in this report.
We fielded and bowled well. To get the opposition out for 155 with only 9 men was a great effort. Especially with a wicket keeper who was refusing to move.
Highlight of the fielding was a tremendous run, dive and roll by Harry Norton. Admittedly it would have been marginally more impressive if he had been within 10 yards of the ball.
It seemed a total we could chase. With Skinner having to leave at 5p.m. to get to his very young and trendy concert, he opened the batting with Lush.
Luddesdown had two decent openers, one a youngster who had a touch of the Sam Luxton about him in look and style.
Skinner looked in pretty good form and would like to expound further on the beauty of his cover drive but sadly there isn’t enough space here to give it its full glory.
With the clock ticking to avoid a divorce, he swept one ball for 4 and then decided he was going to repeat the shot but was too early and given out l.b.w. A decent 18 runs.
Angus Kenny was next in but lost his partner who got a beauty from the opener to lose his off bail. Lush was out for 12. Unfortunately, from there it was something of a procession of wickets, primarily down to some useful bowling from an experienced Luddesdowne attack who knew how to bowl on a very low and very slow track.
One point of note, when Isaac and Angus came together for the last wicket, with 90 something still required for the win, there was a long and earnest discussion as to how they should go about the chase…..only for Angus to play all round a straight one next ball.
Incidentally, in a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, Tim Lush took control of the scorebook and his score was somehow switched with that of Skinner by the time it reached the club website.
His response – that’s what happens when you leave early…..and how else does one become a ‘Legend’? ?