KCC V Oxenford Steve Dixon cup

Having previously been thrashed by Oxenford in the first few weeks of the season this was a game the Skip was not looking forward to.
with the ones and twos both missing players to Holidays the side looked a little light on the batting front and contained 6 of our youth players.

Oliver thankfully won the toss and had no hesitation in batting, even though the wicket didn't look good and was still visibly damp..
Oliver opened with Jeacock and the conditions were tough from the off. Jeacock had the first delivery bowled to him just miss his chin and the second pitching in a similar place rolled past his ankles .. Rowley and Mir bowled well and used the conditions to their advantage and KCC soon found themselves in trouble when Jeacock was dismissed in the 9th over for 10 runs.
Things didn't go much better for the next few overs with Debutant Behal being bowled for 1 and then swaddling and Brock Jnr and failing to trouble the scorers this week . and KCC found themselves at 42 for 4 at 20 overs , which quickly became 50 for 5 as Oliver was next to fall as the second of five victims of Kesavas devastating spell ..
Launchbury Jnr was next to go after hitting a few good shots , one got big on him and he holed out for 4 , Jonah was next in and didn't hang around long this bought together Jed and Neil who both looked assured at the crease and started to look to attack the bowlers . the two veterans of the side were going along nicely when Jed missed a straight one and was adjudged LBW for 11, Oliver Jnr didn't trouble the scorers and kcc were 81 for 9 .. Tony came in at 11 and immediately started to play shots and he quickly raced to 12 before holing out in the deep. Neil batted superbly for an unbeaten 16 .and KCC set a massive total of 98, and if the last game was anything to go by this would take less than 8 overs for them to chase down ..
Kesava was the pick of the bowlers with 5-21 from 11.1 overs

we then had tea .. not the warm variety as there was no teabags again !!

Tony and Jacob opened up the bowling and Harris and Cocburn-marsh immediately looked to attack taking 8 from the second over , Tony steadied the ship with 2 well bowled maidens and had the dangerous looking Harris adjudged LBW in the 5th over .. was this to be one of those days ?!
Quite simply it didn't look like it was going to be our day as Oxenford were cruising to their target score and after 14 overs were 54 for 1 needing just 45 for victory with 9 wickets for KCC still to take , the task looked to big and was surely beyond this young KCC side..
The skipper bought himself on after the enforced change as Jacob had bowled his 6 overs for 33 runs , Andy struck in his second over having Cockburn marsh adjudged LBW to a ball that didn't get above ankle height !! , Tony then struck twice with his last two balls of his 9th over with Oxenford now on 56 for 5 and looking flaky ! , this was the first of two hat trick deliveries in this innings which both came to nothing .
Tony struck again in his 12th over taking his 5th wicket with superb figures of 12-2-5-24 . and was replaced at the pavilion end by younger brother Jed .
Oxenford were still in the hunt at this stage with 4 wickets in hand and only being 30 runs short could KCC pull this off!! by now the Ones had arrived back at the brake having lost in a low scoring game to Kilkenny .
The skipper then took two quick wickets Kesava LBW and clean bowling the opposing skipper first ball .. the hat trick ball didn't come to much but this left Oxenford 8 down and only adding 1 run to the total ..
Jed started off tight with his first two deliveries and then clean bowled Bakhtiar with his 3rd ball and closed with a wicket maiden . Oliver Bowled again from the far end and Oxenford got a single from that over with Oliver closing with figures of 7-3-3-12 . Jed was looking good and bowling to the set batsman Hamp who was clearly wondering what the hell was going on as when he got to the crease Oxenford were well in control . they took a quick single off the first ball and Jed then bowled a looping delivery which Mir played and missed , the third delivery he also played and missed this struck him square on in front of all 3 and KCC got their 5th LBW of the match and pulled off the most superb of victories in the most unlikely of circumstances ..

A special well done to all of the youth within the side but particular emphasis has to go to Jonah and Jack, Jonah kept wicket for the first time in the twos and did an amazing job, Jack was lightning fast in the field and chased everything down and must have saved 15 runs easily in the field .. both of which enabled us to pull off this amazing victory :) well done lads