2s Fall to Rasen Defeat

(Another welcome before the report commences - Dan Price, the 2nds' overseas for this season, arrived in England from New Zealand last week and spent the weekend with family down south before arriving in Lincoln on Monday. Monday night was spent practising switch-hits in the nets with no pads. As you do. Welcome DP!)

The 2nds started the season with a defeat against a fairly strong Market Rasen side at the LCG on Saturday. New skipper Ollie lost the toss, as predicted, was put into bat, as predicted, and was the first man to fall, as predicted, for seven after opening the batting with new man George Butler. Ozzy Rabbani was sent in at three and steadied the ship with George, moving the score along to 61 before George was given LBW. He thought he was outside the line, we thought it looked high, but it was clearly Ozzy who was high as he thought it was going down leg. Crucially, though, the umpire thought it was out and George was on his way for a very well put together 27 on debut. Wellsy was in at four and added 30 with Oz before the latter attempted to clip one through the leg side, only to find a thick edge which was taken well by first slip. With the score looking nicely set at 92-2 before Ozzy's dismissal a decent total looked on the cards, however a middle order collapse soon threw that into doubt. Wells was caught behind (or stumpted?) for 19, Max caught for 13, Picko given LBW for one, new man Jacob Hughes-Pickering definitely stumped for 0, Matt Gleadell also given LBW and Dewy was bowled after realising we were playing cricket and not golf. This left young Zac to see out the remainder of the overs with Dan T which they did manfully, with Zac even clipping a delicious four off his hip while at the other end, Dan took an early lead in the six-hitting bargain bucket challenge. Dan finished on 27* and Zac on 10*, with the innings closing somewhat disappointingly on 153-9, which incidentally was 101 more than the first game of last season. Ex-Lindum man Matt Rutherford bowled very well to finish with figures of 6-27 from his 16 overs.

The chase started well for Lindum, as three early wickets for Dewy restricted the visitors to 15-3. The first was bowled, the second was caught behind by George while the third skimmed through four and a half inches from the floor to trap their dangerous number four plumb in front. However, a fourth wicket partnership of nearly 40 steadied the ship, before Dewy picked up his fourth by clean bowling the number three for 30. However, it slowly turned out not to be Lindum's day as the number five continued to bat well, making his way to 50 to turn the game in Rasen's favour. Wellsy did manage to get him for 61 with the score on 113, and then did the same to the number six for 18, but it was too little, too late as the next man came in to score 22 from 10 balls to see Rasen over the line with four wickets and 12 overs remaining. A good effort against a decent side and plenty of positives to take into the next game.