June 2018

What a game!!

Lovely weather, lovely ground, friendly oppo with game played in right spirit, lovely tea, and really good performance from Ivanhoe with ……. a win for us!!!!

Botany Bay batted first. Andrew (1-27) and Ciaran (3-25; fantastic spell) opened. Prasad bowled really well and unlucky to finish 0-33.  Richard chimed in with a good spell of 2-25. But the star of the bowling was Max whose 4-30 included a couple of their strong batsmen!! A shame his hat trick ball lacked the finishing touch. Great fielding and 3 catches for Ciaran!

Botany Bay finished on 146 (their highest scorer the opener with 28)

So a good pitch to Bat on and Ivanhoe started confidently before Bob fell on 4. Conner (15) and Richard (21) shared good partnerships with Earl. Max somehow contrived to be runout for 0. Earl ended up runout for 44, a great knock with plenty of fine shots. And when Stephen fell for 10 we stood at 6-142 with 6 runs to get. But we staged a mini collapse with Ciaran (16) and Prasad (0) falling in quick succession before Phil (7) brought us home with fortuitous 4 run overthrow to win the game with an over and 2 wickets to spare.

Lovely! How good an experience compared to last week.

With the toss won and opposition inserted, Christie and Prasad opened the bowling. Prasad was the revelation with swing bowling moving the ball both ways in a hot and humid atmosphere.  He claimed 2 key wickets of the best of the opposing batters. Bovingdon found it difficult to get the ball away and Ivanhoe’s 8 bowlers all taxed the batsmen, even if in Loveday’s case it was where to deposit the boundary.

There can be no disputing the champagne over though. Conor began it with a no bowl and 1^st of only 2 warnings for beamers, and from that ball a dropped catch  too ….. there followed 2 more dropped catches , one catch taken and a run out. Hectic!

With one player passing 50 and the last pair holding on for some pair Bovingdon reached 104 all out.

Ives replied with 107-1, with Kenchington (39) and Dancer(54*) playing aggressively with plenty of four balls to delight in, and with Parnell R joining in (10*) we cantered to victory at over 5 an over.. with about 20 overs to spare.

Win !!!  and a great tea from Mrs Prasad.

R Collins