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The sun shone and the humidity rose on a beautiful day at North Holmwood. The Captain lost the toss and we were invited to bat first on what looked a cracker of a strip. The two Robs were back opening and strode confidently to the crease. The father and son opening bowlers were quickly in to their stride with Paul bowling quickly whilst Alan (Weller) pitched the ball full to get the maximum swing. Lines Jr went first to a dodgy LBW which he seemed to hit, Rob T then cut the quicker Weller via glove straight to gully. The Chairman was joined by Mr G Hammond - or hamstring as he'll be forever now known - to start the recovery. Unfortunately the hamstring went again and Wally decided to retire for a while (to get out of the heat maybe!!). Anyway, Guesty joined the fun and played a couple of exquisite leg side flicks in his short innings. The Chairman played a very correct knock with a couple of cracking 4's before lobbing gently (stupidly) to deepish mid off for 42.
Guesty followed for 12 and Nobby had a brief stay for 8. And so Mr hamstring returned, with Nobby the chosen runner, to partner Dazza who had just got to the crease. The 2 got stuck in to the bowling and the run rate increased quite dramatically with some superb running between the wickets. FYI Stewart 'Nobby', will now be known as Forrest, due to his willingness to keep running. Daryl went for a good 42 whilst Wally (with Forrest running) made a majestic 47. Dave Welton, Matt Jordan and Andy Morgan made some good, quick runs at the death meaning a declaration at 45 overs off 198-8.
And so the reply started, the Captain down the hill with Dazza coming up. It was soon obvious to the Captain that it wasn't his day and replaced himself with Robin from the top end. Dazza got the first breakthrough as Guesty took a blinder at gully. A couple of drops in the slips by the Captain and 'Forrest' set the butterflies loose for a while but soon Robin had the radar on and clean bowled a couple. Dazza too decided it was easier to bowl them than to wait for us to remember how to catch. Then as if by magic Stewart Nobby Forrest Homewood took a cracker at slip, Andy Morgan took another blinder at short mid wicket and the game was almost won. The flying ants were doing their best to upset the batsmen but the Holmwood lads were generous enough to slap the batters on the back at regular intervals to bring the population of the little critters down by 0.0000001 of a percent. Forrest cleaned out the last batsman with a few overs to spare to win by 69 and claim the 39 points.
Many contributed to this victory, come on the TEAM.