3rds defeated by monster score again but improved batting perfomance

Lots of positives shown In todays performance. By Oscar Hewitt

On an overcast day, the 3rds travelled to the glorious Cotswolds scene to be put up against league leaders Hook Norton. Due to a lot of shenanigans there were only 2 players at the ground at 13:15. This left Sam Kimber to toss up, which he lost, meaning we were bowling first which we were not too confident about based on last weeks performance. Hook Norton were also late coming out which subsequently meant that we were behind in the overs. The same opening pair from last week was used, Ummer Dogar and Oscar Hewitt. Ummer started with his usual line and length whereas Oscar struggled to find his, including a no ball beamer in the first ball of his spell. however that soon changed is Oscar made a breakthrough in his third over by brilliantly clean bowling the Hook Norton opener with a ball that clipped the bails on the top of middle stump. Shortly afterwards Ummer removed number 3 batsman M parker for LBW. Now for a bit of controversy! Oscar bowls a delicious out swinging ball that finds the outside edge of Raisbecks bat and is brilliantly caught by P Hewitt. The whole team cheers not even considering that the umpire wasn't going to give it ...the umpires finger remains in his pocket. This was ridiculous and the umpire should be ashamed of himself, the square leg umpire said it was out, the Hook Norton lads said it looked out, however the batsman didn't walk. Skipper P Hewitt made his disgruntled feelings clear to the batsman and the umpire, however we just had to accept it and move on. Eventually N Hussain removed Raisbeck within the first ball of his spell which was brilliantly caught by Ummer. Now Fraser Lovat came in to play what can only be described as a mesmerizing innings. He raced to 129 before being clean bowled by Ummer. Jason Davis also played a wonderful innings of 106 as he was dismissed by Moshin Dogar who bowled very well and kept the run rate down. So thankfully the 45 came to a close and Hook Norton achieved a score off 330.

Good tea, straight back out as we didn't want to upset the already miserable umpire ;)

So we opened P Hewitt and Ummer Dogar. P Hewitt started good with two fours and looked comfortable. Ummer looked more than comfortable on the other hand as he smashed 3 fours of the second over and immediately took the attack to Hook Norton. However this attacking style got Ummer out as he got bowled going for the big shot. In came new gun, Usama Hafeez who didn't take long to hit a nice four to the boundary. Then P Hewitt was next to go as misjudged a full toss to be bowled leaving KCC 44-2. Nadeem Hussain fell to a good ball which brought O Hewitt to the crease. Usama Hafeez and Oscar started a good partnership before Usama cranked it up with some aggressive shots that raced to the boundary, the bowling seemed easy for him. Oscar did ok until he missed a straight ball ( I like to think it swung away ) for an average score of 8. Sam Kimber came in and immediately played positive by scoring quick runs until he found himself caught and bowled. Usamas fine innings of 30 came to an end as he missed a straight one, and then after some late big hitting from moshin dogar, the 3rds found themselves 121 all out.

This game may have looked bad on paper but in reality we put up a good fight and showed we have good quality. yes the thirds are struggling more than ever but I'm sure our time will come eventually, we have already proved we can win this year. Thanks to Usama and Nadeem who played their first game today and showed great team spirit, you guys are more than welcome to continue playing in the team.
Also hope josh behal is feeling better as he had to leave early because of sickness. well played today lads and lets keep our chins up for next week.