Not as warm as last week but with a bit of sun and cloud cover a good day for cricket again 😊
Pitch looked the same as last week (dry and hard) so this time when I won the toss I opted for us to bat.
The idea being set 200 ish and defend as we did last week.
As it turned out though it could have been a better toss to lose, as although the pitch looked the same as the previous week it was actually really SPICY for the first 15-20 overs with lots of variable bounce and a bit of nip off the seam.
Consequently and with some help from the Uppingham openers who both bowled really tight lines and lengths, we lost 3 quick top order wickets to leave us 14/3 after 8 overs, Adam and Bobby both falling for ducks and Sid for 1.
Sam looked like he was batting on a different wicket, as he often does, and after taking the first change bowler for 19 in one over reached his first 50 of the season. Unfortunately he fell quickly after for 51 but by then Archie and himself had got us to 69/3 off 18, a great recovery from where we were.
Archie looked in fantastic form and carried on his great start to the season building a partnership of 60 with Terry, with several 4’s and a massive six before being stumped on 57. Terry looked like he had never been away even though this was his first competitive knock of the season and when CT joined him at the crease Fleckney were 129/5 off 32 and needed a big push for a competitive score on a wicket that had seriously flattened out.
Fulfilling the josh butler role again for the 2nd week running CT hit out from the get go and with Terry smashing it at the other end they put on 75 off 8 overs which included two balls in the bowls club 😊 Terry finishing with 41 not out and Ct with 45 not out. The opposition looked shell shocked at tea and we were jubilant with the 204 given the start we had.
However, the pitch was now very flat and after some less than brilliant bowling from myself (7-2-38-0) and Mark (6-2-30-1) and some very aggressive opening from the Uppingham batsmen we were behind the 8 ball. My knee was in bad shape and Mark had pulled his calf so Jimmy and Sam came on to bowl (thankfully!) and made an impact straight away to get Uppingham 89/3 off 18.
The next few overs went for little runs and with Uppingham 99/3 off 23 overs we looked to be ready to put a squeeze on, Uppingham went to 120/4 off 28 and with only 12 overs left we looked in good shape. Uppingham had kept two good bats back though with their normal opener in at 5 and one of their best bats in at 6 and they took the game away from us over the next few overs, smashing some big 6’s inc 24 off one over to kill the game and finished 205/4 off 35.1.
A disappointing end to the day but I couldn’t fault the team, we tried hard on a flat deck and up against some very good batsmen we just couldn’t quite get over the line. My man of the match for the day was Chris Turner (CT), no byes, kept very well and smashed some quick runs at the end for another good score. Great start to the season chris, keep it up 😊
Honourable mentions for Archie with his 57, Sam with his 51, Terry with his 41 and Jimmy with 2 wickets.
