3rds sneak home against Charlbury

3s hold nerve to win last ball thriller

Kcc 3rds got their second win of the season in an exciting game at Stratfield Brake in baking heat. It was a game that could have gone either way and KCC seemed to have lost their chance after being well on top but the bowlers kept cool heads (unlike the captain) and saw us through to victory.
KCC batted first and after a couple of early wickets to the excellent George Westbury, a good partnership formed with Josef Hewitt (22) playing the anchor role which held the innings together and David McKenzie (28) who dealt mainly in boundaries. Both showed good patience and ran the singles well in a partnership of 48. After David went another two quick wickets followed and it looked like a familiar Kidlington collapse. However there was a real determination about the batting and Ran de Silva joined Josef to rebuild the innings. Josef went given LBW having hit the ball but this brought Tom McCormick in and together with Ran they put on 75 in a superb partnership. Both had to play carefully early on but then went on to strike regular boundaries and push quick singles to get KCC to a good score of 170 on a slow wicket.
An excellent tea was taken late after a slow over rate and then KCC set about defending a decent but not impossible target. Ran and Sam Fransham opened the bowling and while Ran kept things tight at one end Sam once again showed his potential in another super bowling display. He had a wicket in his first over, clean bowling the Charlbury opener and then had the number 3 batsmen caught brilliantly by Tom McCormick in his second over. He should have had 3 but didn't get a clear LBW decision. Kcc had to wait until the 20th over for the 3rd wicket to fall when Mo Talmaki broke a dangerous partnership. Tom McCormick came on and it wasn't long before he got in the wickets. Tom took 3/33 as he lured the batsmen into mistakes. Things were getting tense as Charlbury built good partnerships around first Mark Florey (37) and then George Westbury but just when things seemed to be slipping away from KCC Oscar Hewitt came up with two perfect deliveries to remove two of the senior batsmen. Both were clean bowled spectacularly to reignite the game and set up a tense last over with Charlbury requiring 4 to win. Mo Talmaki gave the main batsmen a single to get the tail ender on strike and then bowled 5 perfect deliveries to restrict the batsmen to a single off the last ball. A magnificent game of cricket featuring a number of superb performances from youth players on both sides.