Saturday XI Vs London Gymkhana Away

The scorecard for this game can be found here

This past Saturday we played away at London Gymkhana, a team second in the league and with the potential to do some damage. We won the toss and with the pitch looking like a minefield and the cloud cover above, elected to field first. Two blistering opening spells from the consistent pairing of Joel and Webber seemed to work beautifully. The batsman struggling to get the ball away with the pitch nipping and tucking as predicted. The breakthrough finally came after Webbs trapping their opener on the crease with an LBW.

Ten overs in and a run rate of 3 an over, the Hill were in good shape. Tight spells then from Elliot and Rob Davie only then tightened the noose around the neck of Gymkhana, at 20 overs and drinks, being on 79-1. Then another breakthrough, a half tracker from Rob went full cycle and came back down to bowl their number 3. Game on. A succession of wickets followed, Adam Williams taking a top snaffle in the deep off the bowling of Symons who tightened up his lines this game in a good spell. This should have been the turning point for us, however our slow over rate and poor fielding allowed Gymkhana back into the game. Gifting runs with poor groundwork, they lifted themselves closer to 200 despite the best effort of Webber and Kennedy, back into the attack. Webbs finished the pick of the bowlers with 3-45 from his ten. Gymkhana ended on 220-6.

Our pursuit was started by Adam Williams and Elliot. The opening pairing of recent weeks had endured an up and down relationship until now, leading us to 80-0 and a very solid start 15 overs in. Some lovely stroke play combined with a bit of guile, the two guided themselves into very good starting positions, only not to proceed further. Two quick wickets of Williams (33) and Ransom (42) left us in a spot of bother. The middle order was then left to try and solidify however at 100-3 from 20, we still were in with a shout. Unfortunately we got bogged down and left ourselves with too much to do with too little time and when we attempted to accelerate, the wickets tumbled. Short flurries from Symons (17) and Rob Davie (17*) put us within touching distance however we were all out in the final over for 181, achieving the final batting point but not being enough for the victory.

A good effort against a really strong side in our league-Gymkhana have lost only two this year and it isn’t out of our reach to beat them. The fact that we didn’t buckle when a team hit 200 odd against us and still batted as a team shows how far we have come this year. Lets keep finishing strong-we remain in 6^th in the league.