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A.Guest in our midst!!
Saturday turned out to be a good un for the NHCC boys and their quest for the holy grail that is division 2. A miserable morning gave us a bad feeling of wasted hours spent in the pavilion at Horsley whilst their covers did their job. Luckily the whole afternoon threatened a shower but none came.
The skipper lost the toss and was delighted to hear the 'we'll bat' uttered from the mouth of his counterpart. It was soon clear that the wicket was sluggish but basically true therefore lots of hard toil for the bowlers. Captain Cheesy started with Morgs and as usual the runs were slow to come. Morgs found it quite hard to find line and length and was replaced by Robin quite early. Robin's pace worried all the batters but luck was not on his side either. The opener, who kept their side afloat, farmed the strike as often as he could and actually that must have been 80% of the time!! Without him though, the 160+ total would have never been achieved in a month of Sunday's.
Eventually Nobby the Bobby replaced Robin and bowled a lovely line and length, varying his pace cleverly. The opener finally got out trying to up the pace and top edged a full bunger (or pie as we like to call them) straight up to give the Chairman an easy catch walking in. The rest of the batting order struggled with the tight bowling and Nobby gorged himself on the batsman to finish with 6-23 off just over 7 overs.
Chairman's comment; The fielding again was good but maybe the intensity was down a little on recent performances, let's not let this slip as the standard has been so high nearly all year. A mention too that our would be hero, Mr Guest, caught - yes caught - 2 catches along with ones from the skipper and Matt Jordan.
Tea came and went and so we started our run chase. The 2 Rob's went out and struggled early against good tight bowling from the opening bat and some good deliveries from the skipper. Wet weather then played an UGLY shot and was bowled for 4. The chairman came and went for a quick 13 bowled by one that cut back nicely. Guesty joined Robin and was happy early on to let jr take the leading roll. 37 taken from 2 overs by Robin from the spinner swung the game Holmwoods way and an early finish looked odds on. Robins powerful, full blooded drives and huge pulls spread the field to the boundary's edge. Finally, on 74, he was bowled between his legs and a wobble started. Guesty had a part in 2 run outs but he kept the scoreboard ticking with some lovely shots on the off side and a few dabs on the on side. As we got closer Nobby and Matt Jordan fell too and it was down to the Skipper to come to the party and support Guesty on his way to a match winning innings. With less than 10 wanted the skipper flat batted one through backward point to the cheers of his team mates leaving Guesty to hit the winning runs and the 36 points that came with it.
Well batted A.Guest.