It was back to Limpsfield again, scene of last weeks nail-biter, this time for the visit of Farnborough... could they provide us with a similar finale as the previous week?... The faint-hearted among us rather hoped not. This was to be our final home fixture for this campaign and while Donna's tea efforts are now only a distant memory, the same could be said of the hot showers... let's hope that if and when we return this will have been resolved.
With so many unavailable for selection this week we were grateful to our old mate Martin Bashford for stepping in to help us out. Hero Captain Hill won toss and elected to bowl first, mindful of a rather longish tail this week, (longer than usual anyway) and threw the ball to our Kolpak signings McLachlan and Culhane who both bowled beautifully. Hamish in particular drew praise from KHM who normally looks upon seamers as drones who take the shine off the ball in order for the spinners to operate... "The more I play with him the more I appreciate his intelligence with the ball" he confided...and two years on from Hamish's Beechwood debut Keith has finally detected that he speaks with a different accent to most of us... Well spotted Keith!
Although Hamish was getting the lion's share of the praise, Larry was also bowling well and it was he who made the initial breakthrough, uprooting opener Jamson's leg-stump with the score on 26. This brought the fleet-footed Fraser to the crease to partner Wright and these two survived reasonably comfortably without breaking loose too often until the score had moved along to 52. Patel had replaced Larry from the pavilion end and Fraser clipped one of his leg-breaks to backward-square where Hamish was patrolling... Wright called Fraser for the single but even the speedy Fraser was struggling to beat Hamish's throw and a direct-hit resulted in the batsman being run-out as a result of his bat not being grounded. Top work from Hamish and a definite champagne moment, were we still to hold one... Just seven more runs were added when Savory caught Wright in close off Dodgy, and after a rebuilding partnership was compiled by Garrett and Deller, Dodgy just started to run through 'em.
91-3 soon became 111-8, with only Garrett, who looked very strong on the on-side, providing any answer to Dodgy's leggies. Wolstencroft came in and clubbed a few to get Farnborough up to a score that they could bowl at, but Dodgy went on to pick up his five-for and Savory mopped up the tail with the help of Keith's gloves and Farnborough found themselves bowled out for 127 inside 41 overs. A slightly below-par score maybe but still a tricky one to chase, especially when the length of Beechwood's tail was taken into consideration. Beechwood again fielded efficiently, putting their Groombridge horror-show well and truly behind them and although there wasn't a great deal of chasing to be done, Stuart still gave us a couple of displays of his "Treadmill Chase" to the boundary resulting in The Mystery Machine driving off without him... never mind mate... Scooby Snacks for tea!! For the record, Prashant returned the figures of 13 overs for 31 runs with the five wickets thrown in for good measure... not bad considering his first ball landed somewhere in Oxted, but even he would concede that the run-out probably was the turning point of the innings.
After a plentiful tea provided by Captains Hill and Sausage, Beechwood set about their run-chase with their openers Freeman and Makin. After several gutsy innings of late Keith was perhaps due to fail at some point, but all the same he looked a little unfortunate to be adjudged lbw... on that ball anyway!! Whatever, Beechwood were 2-1 when Hamish joined Tony out in the middle. Their partnership was the all important one and in some ways it reminded me of vintage Freeman/Kelly the way they set about things. Both batsmen were looking pretty well set and had advanced Beechwood to 87 when Hamish was on the receiving end of a confident lbw appeal from Garrett. The bowler had almost finished his run-up for the next delivery when Keith eventually raised the finger and Hamish was perhaps a little unlucky as there was maybe a hint of doubt in Keith's mind?! Just a TINY hint perhaps Keith??
Anyway Hamish was gone for 34 and Captain Hill strode out to the wicket and played as only he knows in these situations (or any other?!) and spanked a few boundaries on his way to a cameo 20 before becoming yet another lbw victim, Keith slightly more assertive in his adjudging this one, and one senses that from the way Farnborough celebrated, the bowler in question, Godley, doesn't get too many of these, so congratulations if that's the case. Prashant joined Tony, who by now had completed his half-century and this pair nudged their way to the target with plenty of time to spare; Tony finishing 56 not out. A decent win then against a fairly strong Farnborough opposition, of whom it's always a pleasure to welcome here. This captaincy lark... easy-peasy eh Brad?
For the record Colin Robinson and Steve Cooksley also competed in this fixture... as well as Stuart Boss and Martin Bashford... one hopes that they enjoyed their fielding and umpiring stints!! (I think Robbo did!)
See you at Wadhurst (where the pub outside the station comes highly recommended!).
Beechwood:
Bashford, Boss, Cooksley, Culhane, Freeman, Hill (c), Makin (wk), McLachlan, Robinson, Patel, Savory
Final word from the DoC:
Another good solid performance, although I'm somewhat reluctant to call us a Beechwood XI sometimes!
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