Simon Hague gets 4 wickets but 3rds fall short

The thirds struggled at Deddington on Saturday. Starting a man short Captain, Paul Hewitt, decided to bowl first on a green wicket but this proved to be an unfortunate decision as they lost Lee Davie after a couple of overs to injury so it was a long afternoon in the field with 9 players on a hot day. The wicket played pretty well and Deddington batsmen progressed steadily against some good disciplined bowling by Kamran Ramzan and Simon Hague. Jed Launchbury came on to replace Kamran and made the breakthrough with a ball that move in considerably to beat the bat, Simon then follow up with a wicket in the last over of his first spell, Paul Hewitt replaced Simon and took the wicket of the Deddington opener for 39 so KCC were right back in the match. Jed and Paul kept the batsmen quiet for a few overs but they soon cut loose and pushed the scoring rate up. Simon came back on to take a couple of key wicket with a fantastic spell of bowling including two wickets in two balls. Kamran was unlucky not to get a wicket and had a couple of difficult chances dropped. The "champagne" moment was definitely Lauren Smith's catch, a superb backward leap to catch a fiercely struck shot by the Deddington captain, an excellent performance in the field by Lauren. Jed and Paul picked up a couple more wickets but in the end the total went past 200 with some big hitting in the last few overs.
Kidlington got off to bad start with the bat, Mark Turner out in the second over caught behind. Matt Comley seemed to be striking the ball well but was too keen to get on with the game and was bowled for only 6 before he got going. Paul Hewitt and Jake Sternberg dug in to try to recover the innings but Jake was cruelly run out off an attempted caught and bowled at the other end.
This brought Jed Launchbury to the crease and he hit some lovely shots including two sixes in a decent partnership with Paul but the captain gave it away again just when the team need some patience! Out caught and bowled so now it was down to Jed work with the youth players. KCC battled hard but wickets continued to fall regularly until the last pair of Simon Hague (10n.o.) and Lee Davie (14) gave a late flourish to the innings until Lee misses a straight one. So a heavy defeat in the end but once again we saw the future stars of Kidlington in action, a great effort for the youth and superb bowling by Simon Hauge.