Sunday XI Sneak Home

The weather conditions were damp, overcast & a little muggy with a threat of thundery showers later in the afternoon. However, we got a full game in as the predicted rain thankfully never arrived.

It was the end of Maldon’s cricket week and there were many tired, battered, and bruised bodies on the park this afternoon but still more than willing to represent the club for the Sunday game.

Maldon’s skipper (Jas) called correctly at the toss and elected to bat first. Being a Sunday game, this sometimes affords us the ability to do something a little different so father and son – David & Cameron Blackboro opened the batting. David, being a usual No11 would not normally open the innings but battedwell scoring 9 before being dismissed in the 8 the over. In fact, he battered so assuredly that the opposition were not all convinced that David was a No11. 

Stato came in at No 3 and formed a solid partnership with Cameron. Stato went on to make a quick 30 before falling and Cameron smashed 5 4’s and retired not out on 50.

Mason Foakes then made a quick 10 runs before being bowled. This bought Luke Reeve to the crease who once again made batting look so ridiculously easy and made a very fast 26 before falling.

Richard Buckby then strode out into the middle, feeling confident after his heroics from last Sunday – however, he was run out with scoring. The youngsters Will Hayes & Charlie Reeve were both out cheaply this left Jas & Luke Sanders to close the innings making 12 between them & Luke being dismissed LBW off the last ball of the innings.

Maldon set a total of 161 with the loss of 8 wickets. Maybe 20 runs short of where they wanted to be but nevertheless – a par score on the Tillingham wicket. 

Maldon’ s opening bowling pair were Luke Sanders & Will Hayes. Luke once again bowled with pace and aggression and took Maldon’s 1st wicket in the 3rd over by clean bowling the opening bat. Will also bowled with pace, fire and aggression which kept the scoring down.

Charlie Reeve and Bethan Bailey came on first change. Charlie as always bowled accurately and finished off his 5 over spell with 1 for 17. Bethan has bowled beautifully all season and was getting substantial turn on the wicket. She bowled 8 overs on the bounce and finished off with 2 wickets from their top order.

By the 30th over Tillingham were just over 100 runs and feeling confident of reaching the target total. However, Jas had kept the Maldon heavyweight’s in reserve to counter the Tillingham attach in the closing stages.

Dangerous Dave and Luke Reeve bowled 6 overs each and made scoring difficult. Jas came on for the 5 overs at the end of the innings and dismissed Tillingham’s last 4 wickets for 13 runs. Luke Reeve took 2 catches off Jas’s bowling.

In 38th over Tillingham needed 4 runs to win with theirNo11 at the crease. Jas had him clearly LBW as he was back on the crease and the ball was going to hit middle stump without any question at all. The whole team appealed in unison & Jas looked at the umpire who said, ‘missing leg’. The umpire then started to remove the bails and I asked, ‘Have you given it?’ – he said no but the batsman had walked. None of us have ever seen that occur on a cricket pitch but great sportsmanship by their No 11.

Tight games are always good to play in & nice to win. Even with tired, battered, and bruised bodies the team showed their competitive spirit, togetherness and won the game. Next up for the Sunday X1 is Willingale away hopefully, where we can make it 3 wins in a row.