KCC II V CNCC Again :)

KCC II hosted Chippy 2s having only played them in the away fixture a week ago, CNCC fielded a very similar team with only two changes and KCC had a very different looking side with 9 different faces from this fixture.

it was a blustery day at the brake with plenty of warmth with the occasional bit of sun so Oliver when winning the toss yet again had no hesitation than to elect to bat.
Oliver opened up with Debutant Worsley and the pair started nicely with both working the ball around and rotating the strike, unfortunately Worsley missed a straight delivery from the unorthodox Molyneux and kcc were 18-1 ..this bought club stalwart eagle to the crease who has been in fine form for the threes with a few high scores already. unfortunately this was not to be today and Martin was dismissed caught at gully . Pratt was next in and immediately looked to dominate the bowling looking extremely strong off his legs he played some beautiful shots for six over deep square leg , the score was going along nicely and the 100 came up in the 19th over , Pratt went for another big shot to deep square and the fielded Wallington excellently caught the ball but unfortunately stood on the rope at the same time and immediately signalled six (great sportsmanship well done) unfortunately Jon's reprieve was short lived and he left a straight one the following over for an excellent 58.
J launchbury now was at the crease with Oliver and they looked to continue working the ball around and finding the singles, then CNCC skipper Sam made a bowling change that would make KCC tale wag and brought on Owen from the pavilion end and Elliott from the far end, Oliver was first to go having a swish across the line and again missing a straight one for a patient 34,
KCC were now at 133 for 4 with best part of 17 overs still to bat. a couple more runs were accumulated by the launchbury brothers before the tail well and truly wagged on 141 we lost a further 4 wickets without scoring with Tony falling then Oliver,. Pratt jnr and launchbury jnr all failing to trouble the scorer , Ran hit a nice 4 through backward point before going for the big shot and missing a straight one and the innings closed on 145

after a nice tea we set about defending a below par score on a good wicket and Oliver had pre warned the bowlers that he may need to be ruthless as we don't have runs in the bank to play with, de silva and T Launchbury opened up and both proved hard to get away.
the first wicket came in launchburys first over when cannard dollied one up from a leading edge and both keeper and bowler stood looking at each other deciding who would go for it...... neither did ..but thankfully the batsman were in an equal state of disarray and launchbury fielded the ball and threw down the stumps, launchbury then picked up his first wicket in the sixth over with a sharp catch from keeper Pratt (the first of two great catches and an all-round great keeping performance with only conceding one bye also) and CNCC were now 30 for 2, Bradford and wallington were still at the crease and long dangerous until launchbury got his second wicket of Bradford bowling a lovely in ducker that the batsman played all around.
ward was next to go with another launchbury combination of bowled T launchbury and a great catch from J launchbury. at drinks in the 24th over CNCC were 106 for 6 with De silva picking up a wicket and finishing a good spell of 10-0-47-1 and launchbury 12-2-47-4 .
debutant Worsley who is a canny left arm spinner unfortunately looked a little rusty and went for 19 from his three overs (hopefully we will be seeing a lot more of Joe this season as he's a great guy to have about and a decent cricketer to boot)
Oscar had been doing a fine job in the field and was asked to bowl from the top end but unfortunately found his length hard to find and went for 8 from his first over , with very few runs to play with the Oliver Duo tried to buy a few wickets with Jacob managing to do what was asked picking up the wicket of Elliot with a great ball, Oliver bowled tight and had a few good shouts for lbw turned down from the umpire .. in the end we just didn't have enough runs to play with and CNCC cruised home in the 33rd over with three wickets being the difference ..

a great effort and a good game that I thoroughly enjoyed , thanks for everyone's effort in the field again I cant think of any dropped other than two half chances that both did well to even get to and a great all round fielding and bowling effort , lets make the use of these nice evenings though and lets get some practice in the nets :)