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On a lovely Sunday afternoon at Close House playing Ponteland, with nearby Hexham under floodwaters, Jon Robinson scored his first century for Genetics. Losing the loss and batting first, Genetics overcame the early loss of Mike Gardner for his customary soft dismissal at Close House, and settled in to score steadily, if somewhat cautiously. Raj Rihal was the next wicket to fall for 17, always looking uncomfortable against the spin. Andrew Porteous made a solid 27 before he was dismissed, and Mark Buckley was run out for 21. In the meantime, Jon was continually clubbing the ball to all parts of the boundary, especially cow corner in front of the scorers, where a gaggle of Ponteland fields were congregating along the boundary, were trying in vain to stop the ball hurtling past them. At one stage it looked as if Andy Goulding would hog the strike and Jon would be denied the chance the get into 3 figures, but finally in the last over, Andy took a single, declining the chance to run 2, and Jon took the strike. His four took him to 103, and was greeted by a rapturous applause from his teammates. He was out next ball but his runs (and Genetics’) were on the board, and Ponteland were left chasing 218 to win. The Ponteland innings started brightly enough, with their openers looking very competent, putting on 120 for the first wicket. However, once they were out the innings and the run rate fell away, and two wickets by Gary van Doorn and some good fielding meant that Ponteland fell 23 runs short of the target.
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