Saturday June 26th 2021

The 1st XI welcomed mid-table Plumtree to The Strand and invited them to bat first on a wicket with a growing reputation for delivering plenty of runs.  There was a good opening spell from both James Tilbury, who captured an important early wicket and finished with 2 for 47, and Ian Stone that restricted Plumtree to just 3 an over from their first 13 overs.  A couple of quick wickets then looked to have the visitors in some bother at 69 for 3 before a partnership of almost 150 changed the whole complexion of the game.  This, together with some late powerful hitting to the shorter boundary, saw Plumtree finish on 321 for 8 from their 50 overs.  Savin Perera secured his 50th wicket for the club and Paldip Sidhu took his very first wickets for side finishing with 3 for 69.

The Squirrels reply started in very similar fashion to Plumtree with regard to run rate but whilst many batsmen established themselves well, none were able to go on to complete a match winning innings.  Paldip Sidhu top scored with 45 with other contributions coming from skipper Ben Shaw 41, Jude Noble 39, Josh Wilson 38 and Zak Tribe 31.  The 7th wicket partnership of a run a ball 73 between youngsters Jude and Josh was particularly pleasing to see.  

The NPL rules allow for a team batting second to collect two points if they reach 85% of the first innings score; this would have been a deserved reward but we fell just 10 runs short of the 273 required being bowled out with 8 balls to come. 

The 2nd XI played at Eastwood Town who batted first and, aided by a significant number of extras, amassed 273 for 7 from their 48 overs.  Spinners Angad Singh and Will Shields both took 2 wickets for 55 runs.  

In reply, after being 83 for 1 at one stage, wickets fell quite regularly before the innings closed on 183 for a defeat by 90 runs.  Albert Gardiner top-scored with 63 taking him past 1,000 runs for the 2s and Angad Singh hit 35.  The side included league debutant John Holroyd for the first time.

After progressing to the semi-final of the Raleigh Cup in midweek the 3rd XI returned to league action with a trip to Wymeswold.  After a good opening partnership the home side struggled to cope with the bowling of Tom Shields, 4 for 30, and young Owen Crofts returning his best 3rd XI bowling with 4 for 35.  Wymeswold collapsed to be all out for 134 in the 42nd over.  

A perfectly manageable target but without the determined batting of opener Pete Bateman, it could easily have been too much.  Pete finished unbeaten on 53 as the 3s reached their target with plenty of overs to spare but with 7 wickets down.  This was Pete’s second ‘bat carrying’ performance on the trot as opener, scoring 84 unbeaten runs in the two games whilst watching 16 wickets fall at the opposite end.

After two wins on the trot the 4th XI took on Keyworth 2nd XI at the University ground.  Asked to bat first Carl Knight completed his first 50 of the season, captain Sam Randall continued his recent excellent form with 76 and Matthew Hubbard, making his first appearance of the season, put together his highest 4th XI score of 35.  A total of 198 for 5 looked to be a decent challenge at the very least, but Keyworth dominated with the bat to reach their target with 9 wickets in hand, albeit with only 3 of their 45 overs remaining.

Graham Shaw