Kidlington crumble at Kilkenny and suffer a big loss

After some heavy rain during the night and some in the morning, the firsts travelled to Kilkenny in the hope of beating them for the first time this year and earning some points. With Edd away, Andy Oliver was the captain and led a different looking side to the past couple of games. After losing the toss, we were put in to bat on a bad looking wicket, Richard Walker and Sahil Kalyan were to open the batting. The first over went for 10, including a four from each opener and we looked on track for a competitive score with the score on 18 from 3 overs without loss but things started to go downhill from there. The bounce on the wicket was very uneven as some balls were flying over the batsmen's shoulders and others were barely lifting off the ground. Sahil was the first to go, off the bowling of Gordon when a few short pitched deliveries were followed with a fuller one, trapping him in front LBW. Craig Woods went in next and looked uncomfortable from the start, wearing a helmet which he never does but felt he had to after seeing the strange bounce. He didn't have to bother with the helmet for much longer though as he was dismissed in the 6th over for a duck playing an aggressive shot for no reward. Andy was in at 4 and he too had a few overs at the crease, bowled by King for 3. Razwan Dogar fell in the same over, going back to a full ball and seeing his stumps being disturbed, the second duck of the innings. Ben bollig joined Richard, they both hoping to salvage the innings and get out of the dire situation we were in. Richard was caught in the 10th over for 10 runs, once again an attacking shot was attempted of the wrong delivery and we were in serious trouble now at 27-5. Kamran Ramzan, in at 7, arrived at the crease, he and Ben both wanted to play some overs and increase our total. They played out the opening bowlers' spells, both bowling 9 overs each and taking 5 wickets in total for 34 runs. The partnership was increasing but at a very slow rate, but as each over passed they were getting more relaxed at the crease. Ben played some aggressive cut shots and a couple of shots on the leg side too, while Kamran was finding it difficult to rotate the strike and just played out overs instead. The 6th wicket fell in the 23rd over when Kamran mistimed a leg side flick straight into the hands of midwicket. The partnership yielded 31 runs in 13 overs. Jeremy Launchbury and Ben added 18 with a couple of fours from Jed and one from Ben. Ben was batting very well but was dismissed due to a lapse in concentration, after taking a blow to the Crown Jewels and lying on the floor for a minute or 2. He made 22 runs in difficult conditions, the highest scorer of our innings. Jacob Oliver chipped one up 2 balls later for a duck and we were on 76-8. Jed hit a couple more blows before being caught for 14, then Will Thwaites and Tony Launchbury enjoyed themselves for a few overs. The innings ended with Will being run out going for a second run, out final total a disappointing 99 all out with 14.2 unused overs.

We had a fantastic tea, the highlight of the day before preparing to attempt a defence of our score. Andy had experience of this sort of scenario from earlier in the season, defending a low score against Oxenford and almost against Tetsworth. Will and Tony opened the bowling and they both enjoyed the wicket conditions. Tony got the first breakthrough, the opener Barker being bowled with the score on 2. Optimistic in the field, we thought we might be able to achieve the impossible. In the next over Will got the batsmen to half sway out of the way of a short ball and the ball hit his glove, looping up to the slips. Unfortunately it was dropped, this could have been the opening to a big collapse with the score 2-2 but it wasn't meant to be. Will was having fun bowling short and watching the batsmen ducking and swaying to avoid his bouncers. Tony at the other end was also bowling tight and some fuller balls were shooting of the surface and Ben was taking them around chest height. The bowling remained sharp but the runs were steadily flowing and our chances of victory were getting slimmer and slimmer. It just didn't look like it was our day with some half chances and drop catches helping the batsmen reach their target. Ramzan replaced Will, who bowled 10 economical overs the score was on 54-1 after 20 overs. The batsmen chose to attack Kamran and he kept bowling loose deliveries. Jed bowled a solitary over which was also the penultimate over and managed to get Floyd the opener for 31, Ben taking a very good catch behind the stumps. The umpire didn't give it though, and the batsman didn't look like leaving but after a few words of disgust from all the fielders, he walked off. The game ended in the following over, Kilkenny winning by 8 wickets.

A bad display this week, losing against Kilkenny in all 3 duels this season, but hopefully we can pull it back next week at home to Chadlington.