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Annual high-flyers Rowlands were CCC's opponents last Sunday and with only one win in four so far, a CCC victory was looking unlikely. With the game before ours finishing early the officials were eager to get things moving, which led to us starting the game with only five players on the field. Whilst stalling for the arrival of Mudasser, I lost the toss and Rowlands captain, Shaun Collins, told his Dad - Eddie, hmm sorry, the umpire, that his team would like to bat first.
Rian was straight into the deep end on his six-a-side season debut when I tossed him the ball and asked him to open the bowling. That he did and I think he would admit that his first over was by no means his best and contained no less than three wides. Of recent weeks Matty K has struggled when the ball has lacked the semblance of a seam. This week however, when bowling with a pronounced seam the ball tended to drift and spin down leg and in this league anything down leg spells wides and runs against. Nick and Mudasser had one over each that were also wayward, Mudasser now having bowled 8 wides from a possible 12 deliveries this season. One thing our poor bowling did manage to do was not allow the batsmen to settle into any rhythm so when both Matty, the Skipper and especially Rian found their feet the flow of runs was stemmed. Matty was very unlucky not to take the scalp of their captain as a couple of catching chances went begging (guilty as charged). Rian had them on a string in his third over and even managed to bowl an (almost unheard of) indoor maiden over! We managed to run one batsmen out and Nick took a good catch at the death to leave Rowlands on a total of 123, almost 60 of which was probably made up in extras.
Despite a largely forgettable bowling display we weren't too daunted by the total we had to chase. Nick and Rian opened the batting and against one of the best bowling attacks in the competition took a little while to get going. Nick was out for 6 after getting caught just shy of the back wall. I came in at three and Rian and I managed to get some runs on the board with some manic running before Rian was run out for 6 also. Simon W entered the fold and picked up where he left off from last weeks solid batting display. He and I seemed to be going well and we were up with the rate then I was clean-bowled 3 away from retiring on 22. Mudasser then joined Simon and he struggled to score in greater increments of 1 and was duly out caught when pushing for a big shot for a bout 10. Matty was last in to assist Simon who was still going well but by which time we were behind the rate and didn't look like catching back up, despite a valiant effort from both Simon (19) and Matty. In the end we were 20 or so runs away and we have to concede that we were beaten by a better side.
Next week brings a MUST win fixture...Mallards!
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