Saturday XI vs Smallhythe CC

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, James Burgess was tanning and the beers were flowing. It could only mean 1 thing... The Saturdays' first home game of the season.

We started the game in true Saturday fashion by losing the toss and being put into bat. Unlike the previous game, we had plenty of willful volunteers ready to pad up and take to the middle, so outwalked Chris and Ivan, both with stark contrasting quantities of beer in their belly, but with the same end goal of scoring some runs.

The opening pair batted beautifully with Chris taking advantage of some shorter bowling and sending it over the boundary, and Ivan finding regular gaps in the field for 1s and 2s. After a quick 39 run partnership, Ivan had to leave the field retiring hurt which brought the captain to the crease.

Fun fact for our readers today: last season James B and Dmac contributed 48% of the Saturday runs between the 2 of them... So you can understand our concern when both got out for a duck can't you...

Never mind aye! Chrissy carried on batting well until eventually getting bowled on 43 and had some lovely partnerships with Mark whitling (15) and Paul (8) but sadly the longevity of partnerships just wasn't there.

Euan W came to the crease with a nosebleed from batting at 7 with 13 overs remaining. Mark W fell shortly after for 6 and Nigel for 4 bringing Jon Maidstone to the crease with the specific task of batting until the end.

The partnership wasn't pretty but it did go on for a while! Amassing 36 runs between them, many due to extras from the bowlers, until finally Euan (21) got bowled round his legs as he'd been threatening since his first over. Eventually Jon (9) fell as well with his son laughing at the other end and Great Chart finished on 155.

The best bit of the day followed with some lovely teas made by Beth, assisted by James and sabotaged by Lucas, and a few more beers flowed taking us out to bowl the 2nd inning.

We opened with the contrasting pair of Lucas and Euan. Lucas bowling some pacy body line deliveries bowling out their captain on 2 runs, and Euan bowling some liquorice allsorts but still taking the wicket of their dangerous 3rd bat.

The next phase of the game was over almost as quickly as it begun. Some superb bowling from Jon and Nigel picked up a wicket each in the middle orders but the real star of the show came in the form of Paul Davis with absurd figures of 4-2-6-5 including a couple of nice catches from captain fantastic at short cover.

Great game all round and a rare win for Chart against Smallhythe. 2 out of 2. Come on the Chart!