KCC V FREELAND

Déjà vu for Kidlington 2nds as we set a pretty mediocre score and it gets chased down laughably quickly. The opposition today were Freeland. We won the toss and deputy skipper Clarke opted to bat first again because it’s just more fun batting. With the first team also batting first the day was looking good and the Brake had a real buzz about it. However this buzz was lost early on when after a few dry overs, Nick Jeacock performed a ferocious cut towards the boundary, but his bad luck continued as the fielder dived one handed to produce one of many ridiculous catches to come in the game. They only had 9 men, so with one wicket keeper and bowler, basically had 7 men in the field and we continually managed to pick them out. Josh Behal was next to be caught, followed by Ummer being being bowled after hitting a few brutal fours. So now, after 6 years of playing cricket together, Ajay and Jonah were finally batting together for the first time ever. The partnership looked good with fours being hit for fun and some very sharp singles being taken. Kiddy at last looked as though they had some stability, until Jonah got caught out, after thwacking the ball, deep mid-wicket came running up and came up with a diving one-handed catch from about 3 inches off the grass and proceeding to barrel roll on the deck like a deadly ninja. Baiju replaced him and hit a handful of huge boundaries, including a big six, but even the lethal Baij was not immune to the sublime fielding from Freeland as he nicked it behind and the keeper took a one-handed catch low to his right. Ajay then got caught as well, and now we were deep into the tail-enders. Luckily one of those tail-enders was Jacob Oliver who slogged everything left right and centre, with him hitting one bowler for 17 in one over, thus getting more runs in that one over than anyone else managed to get in their whole innings. Tony got a run and then got caught. Jacob was then caught for a very quick 34. Mohsen was caught for 7. The partnership between 10 and 11 Oscar Hewitt and Aman Kalyan was pretty impressive with Oscar hitting 11 then, you guessed it, getting caught. That left Aman on 3 not out and the whole team with a not bad but equally not very good 132.

There were rumblings of going straight back out before tea but the captain just wanted to enjoy the lovely teas which you can now expect at Stratfield Brake, since Legacy have been sacked from providing their pitifully sub-par catering. On the contrary, we were provided with a lovely tea and we are very grateful as always.

Clearly no one had told opener Marc Buckingham that this was a 45 over game, as he reached his 50 after 6 overs at the expense of Tony and Jacob who were ruthlessly withdrawn from the attack for Ajay and Aman. Ajay forced a handful of appeals, but the umpire gave nothing, much to the clear dismay of Mr Behal who was visibly unhappy with this. Eventually he bowled Buckingham who flapped at the delivery and was sent packing. Aman got a nice wicket, when Jacob caught off his bowling. Then it was clear that Freeland were going to chase down 132 at a canter, captain Clarke was keen to give the hardy Kiddy players a bowl for their efforts, and Baiju forced Possee into a slog that was taken by Tony on the boundary, who was clear before the match that we all needed to take our catches, and he duly delivered. Then Freeland chased the score down with Mo and Oscar only getting one over in eavh but they both bowled fairly tightly. Freeland only dropped 3 wickets and chased it before drinks.

Thanks to all who played, there was a great club atmosphere with both teams at home today and it was an enjoyable experience despite both teams getting mugged off. No game next week which is a shame but let’s all enjoy some rest in the meantime.
from Jonah