KCC 1st V Radleyhurst

With cricket finally returning to the brake, we were up against the newly merged Radley/Risinghurst eleven.
the format of the game was to follow the same as the previous week with 40 overs and cup rules.
the skipper duly lost the toss and we were put into the field on a overcast muggy afternoon.
Kalyan Snr and Burrows opened up for RadleyHurst and looked pretty settled from the off with Ramzan and Tippett bowling well, neither producing any chances, The first bowling changes were made with Behal the replacement at the top end and Graham from the pavilion end.
in Behals second over saw the only controversy of the game with Behal chucking down a slightly wider delivery for kalyan to have an almighty swish at.. a nick duly followed which was duly taken by walker behing the sticks.. only for Kalyan not to walk and the umpire to be shaking his head...... ugly scenes ensued for a few minutes where im sure things were said from both parties which they regret.. (if not then they both need to give there heads a wobble)...anyway back to the important stuff..
Radley continued to build and KCC continued to ring the bowling changes looking for the breakthrough , Willmot and Oliver jnr took over the bowling duties with Oliver looking to make amends for last weeks bowling display... and so he did and struck with his first wicket on the last ball of his first over having Burrows caught emphatically at slip by Willmot breaking the first wicket stand of 70 odd. His first ball of his second over saw Kalyan caught at midd off by Tippett . And his second ball saw Ahmed Chop on first ball giving his his first ever Hat trick albeit across 2 overs.
The bowling changes kept coming and young Kalyan looked to be bowling very well before he was struck by the Family's injury curse and hobbled off with a sore Achilles but Monsour was just starting to get going working the field nicely and hitting some great boundaries, a few more wickets followed and drama of course! with Loki playing a wide delivery from Willmot so late he chopped down nastily on top of walkers left wrist...we changed keepers whilst walker administered some ice to his arm returning to the field shortly after. we continued to take a few wickets with Behal picking up 2 and Ramzan 1 , also 1 run out , but we were unable to dislodge Monsour and he ended his innings on 96* and the innings closed without further scenes with Radleyhurst on 217 .
tea was taken and KCC then looked to chase down the total with Walker and Behal opening the show. and that is exactly how it started with walker looking to score quickly 17 being scored off the first 4 overs.. behal and walker complemented each others batting styles nicely with behal looking to work the ball around and walker looking to hit boundaries and dominate the bowlers. bearing in mind he was carrying a very swollen left wrist for me makes this innings even better than last weeks!.
with things going along quite nicely in the 15th over walker took off for a tight second run but unfortunately his dive fell inches short and was given out having set a fantastic foundation with behal of 82 for the first wicket. (Walker 56)
Woods having been sat scoring on the sideline was called to action at three .. and was back scoring the next ball having missed a loopy long hop ..was the KCC collapse about to happen?
Oliver joined behal who was next out to the most unfortunate delivery which simply didn't bounce and rolled into his off stump, Oliver was joined by Willmot who started in great style hitting some great boundaries and rotating the strike nicely with Oliver who took over the role of Behal to just keep working the field and picking off singles.
however this partnership was short lived with Willmott becoming Ahmeds 3rd victim and missing a straight one with the score on 122.
This bought the newly in shape Palmer to the crease, KCC still had a mountain to Climb and the run rate was rising to over 8 an over at this stage.. Oliver and Palmer discussed their plan of attack whgich was quite simple...we needed a run a ball minimum and if a Boundary shot was on lets take it , Lots of singles and twos followed (far too many for my liking) but they stuck to the plan and when Palmer fell they had amassed a further 73 runs and got the run rate down to a run a ball. Oliver was joined by Ramzan and at this stage they needed 24 from 24 balls .. Ramzan struggled to get bat on ball for the next 3 deliveries and the skipper took a kamikaze run to the keeper and came up second best.
we now needed 23 off 18 balls and things had swung back in Radleys favour. Graham and Ramzan now in with Graham looking to follow on from his fine knock the previous week. Graham manged to score a 2 and Ramzan the same leaving us needing 19 off 16 when Graham was bowled by their skipper..now Tippett and Ramzan were in the hot seat with a fair amount of swishing going on in the middle... we now needed 15 off of 12 and had 3 wickets remaining ..tipper hit a 2 then 2 singles followed, followed by a wide then tipper took the pressure off Ramzan by clubbing a 4 off the last ball of the over leaving KCC with 3 runs required from the final over... Radleys Skipper took on the responsibility and was holding his nerve seeing the first two deliveries sail past Ramzan and safely into the keepers hands.. 3 from 4 required now... Ramzan held his nerve and played a shot through the covers to tie the score with a nice 2 , leaving 1 needed from the remaining 3 deliveries.. Ramzan held his nerve though and slashed the next delivery over the top of point for a fantastic 4 to win the match!!!

A fantastic Competitive game of cricket that was as close to a league game as we could have hoped for... hopefully soon we will be able to enjoy a beer at the bar to celebrate.. another mention though for our youth who contributed in all areas with Bat, Ball and there great fielding and enthusiasm.