Hadleigh & Thundersley v BENFLEET CRICKET CLUB Benfleet 3rd XI on Sat 19 Aug 2006 at 1:00pm
Match was Drawn 8 wickets
Hadleigh v Benfleet IIIs
19th August 2006
Benfleet lost the toss and were asked to bat.
Benfleet : 157 all out.
Hadleigh : 158 for 2 Hadleigh won by 8 wickets. Hadleigh 18 points, Benfleet 4 points.
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With the previous week's game against Old Parks called off due to rain all eyes were to the weather.
The forecast was mixed but in reality we had a sunny, dry day on arrival and the pitch looked good despite a bit
of rain during the week. Decisions about batting/fielding proved irrelevent when Hadleigh won the toss and put us in
(as they do every week I note). Obviously confident of chasing we had to get off to a good start.
Willis and Webster opened and it was clear that batting was not going to be straight forward, with one bowler moving the ball beautifully off the pitch in to the right hander, while the other end saw huge booming away swingers being delivered.
Added to this were concerns that Hadleigh's umpire was missing several clear no-balls from the opening bowler !
Despite a couple of lusty four's from Willis back past the bowler he did not look comfortable and was lured into a drive to accommodate the move off the pitch which pegged back his off stump for 10. (No-ball suspicions continued!).
Paul Frensham came out but Taz didn't hang around with him and wa stumped for 6 off the very sprightly Hadleigh keeper.
Frenchie and Jacko hung around for a while but Frenchie then got cleaned up for 13. Benny Ware joined Jacko but took one
on the pads right on the crease and the finger of doom was raised with Benny on 1.
Mark Masson making his first appearance for the 3s this year, supported Jacko briefly before also getting frustrated and went for a big swing at the leg spinner and bowled.
Jacko had been in the middle for a good while and got a useful 25 before also falling to the leggie, this time stumped taking him on.
Benfleet's innings was tailing off with just 82 for 6 posted, but Rob Masson found a bit of form, and Dan and Alex Brady carried it on with these three lads scoring 21, 25 and 23 not out respectively to get us up to 157 for 4 points.
Rob played very watchfully as was required in the situation, Dan hit the ball clean and hard, while Alex played a nice mix of 'shots' and pushes to get us a bit of respite. Good to see the youngsters combining so well.
Unfortunately 157 was never going to be a challenging target for Hadleigh, nad their skipper opened the innings very patiently.
One sharp chance was put down by Willis at gulley but largely the openers played through the various bowling changes at our disposal. Frenchie eventually dismissed the skipper for 63 with a beaut which hit the top of the bails, but the only other success was young Sam Wood who had not bowled in the three's before. Sam bowled finished with 5-1-8-1 which in the circumstances was a fine effort and one we hope he can repeat in the near future.
Hadleigh won comfortably in the end though not before they used up several of the 20 overs at 6pm.
This was a measure of how Benfleet kept the pressure on in the field and didn't roll over in the face of hard graft.
On the day we were just not strong enough in the bowling and the top order let us down in setting a competitive total.
Next week : Home to Orsett (potential champions and likely to give us a hard game)
M.Willis
22/8/06
BENFLEET CRICKET CLUB Benfleet 3rd XI Batting
157 for 10
Hadleigh & Thundersley Bowling
Hadleigh & Thundersley Batting
158 for 2
BENFLEET CRICKET CLUB Benfleet 3rd XI Bowling