It feels like only yesterday the team were celebrating a win in Bedfordshire against Potton, and then here we were again, even further afield in the beautiful village of Eversholt.

Again, Kazi Hoq had a bit of trouble with his sat nav as he took a wrong turning much to Hass’s dismay and missed out on the pregame football match.

Anyway, the scene was set, the sun was out, the team had welcomed new batsman Vishal Thanki to the team and the captain on a blazing hot day called incorrectly and ensured that we found ourselves in the field. The only way to keep spirits high here was to start well with the ball.

Exactly what happened with Busby (looking slightly green) and Gomes taking the new ball and bowling fantastic lines giving the openers of Eversholt no room to free their arms and score any easy runs. Even with one very short boundary the boys ensured there were no easy runs to this and everything had to be worked for. Buzz made the first strike giving a reg shnick to man with the gloves, Scutty, and this got the ball rolling. James Garrett, the other opener, opened stoically and played some enterprising shots against Hass until one too many saw him bowled in what was a brilliant spell of bowling.

Moving into the key partnership of their numbers 3 and 4, Perrin and Nichols, Saqi went to the trusty pairing of Kazi and Holland who were able, after a partnership developed to get both in quick succession. Nichols caught behind by Scutty off Holland and Perrin hitting an easy return catch to Kazi.

With OE’s on top the bowling was rotated and despite some loose stuff from Holland (3-70) and some big hitting from Singleton (40), Eversholt never got ahead of the game and posted 225. Which given the good nature of the pitch, quick outfield and short boundary was not an intimidating total.

Tea – wow. Now clearly Eversholt are suffering a similar potato famine seen only in Barnet through the cricket season, so our thoughts and well wishes go out to them for this. But the tea lady, housemate of the skipper who feels obliged to assist the local team, definitely came up trumps. In temperatures upwards of 30 degrees, the ice cream was tabled and plenty of options quickly detracted from the lack of potatoes.

Into our innings and the debutant opened up with an exquisite punch down the ground which was being called shot of the day and signalled the intent of OE’s in this chase in just the second over. Of course this wasn’t ideal as seeing his class the umpire at one end got itchy and Thanki was sent on his way after being hit on the knee roll batting outside his crease at 6 foot 4. My advice here is to use the bat!

Anyway…..Gomesy entered and soon had the scoreboard racing along as he moved to a very fluent 51 (minus 2) as Jimmy at the other end was heeding the advice of Holland stating “the longer you stay there the easier it becomes”. Although at points this was made to look a daft statement. None the less, one cut shot and the loss of Gomesy to another leg before decision has sprung Jimmy into life and as the senior partner began to dominate the strike from Kazi. The two of them ran beautifully, punished any loose deliveries and put pressure on all the bowlers, so much so it was almost too much for some of them. As they put together a wonderful century stand, it was only a matter of time before they got us to the finishing line.
But here, Jimmy as a wonderful team player, wanted to ensure that Hass stayed in the touch which got him a 90 last week and got him in with 20 runs to get as he and Kazi (88*) saw us past the total with over 7 overs to spare.

The bandwagon keeps on rolling and next week sees us play our 72nd fourth away game in succession as we go to Bushey and look to keep the song singing and the atmosphere pumping! (This is the previous weeks match report, you'll have to wait till later on in the week to find out how we got on at Bushey this week....)

Written by Matt Holland

#comeonyoueees #topof2b #jimmysonfire