The sun was finally shining, providing us with some proper cricket weather as we arrived at Chipping Sodbury and were invited to bat first having lost the toss.
New recruit Javaid Iqbal hit his first ball for 4 but found the going much tougher from there on as he made 20. Fellow opener Dave Yates made 16, Dylan Coles looked good on his way to 31 before being done by a leg stump yorker, while Basi was at his belligerent best in scoring a run-a-ball 29.
Another new recruit, Parag Sharma, made a solid 21 but in truth none of our batters ever looked truly fluent or set as we amassed a total of 173-8 off our 40 overs.
Jason and JJ bowled tight opening spells with both very unlucky not to take a wicket such was the quality of their bowling. It was a bowling change that brought about the first wicket however, with the skipper pinning Sodbury’s opener plum in front of middle stump.
We continued to bowl well on a good batting wicket - Lord ‘Twiglet’ Farquhar bowling some good lines and lengths and Basi getting much more out of bowling from the clubhouse end in his second spell as we pushed Sodbury as hard as we could.
Ultimately opener Ben Boardman’s 90* was to be the difference between the two sides. Had Big Jase taken one of the two catches fired at him at short extra cover, it could have been a different story - but either would have been worthy of winning a match such was the difficulty of the chances.
An enjoyable game played in the right spirit by both sides and plenty of positives to take at the end of a tough week.
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