Poor Batting Costs Lindum in Ancaster Defeat

The Sunday 1st XI's title defence got off to a poor start against newly promoted Ancaster at the LCG on Sunday. New skipper Elliott Dalton's side were put into bat, and Dr Nabil was the first man to fall for five on his last ever performance in the white and white of Lindum. All the best Nabs, I'm sure you'll be back. Ollie came and went fairrrrly quickly, with Max in at four to stabilise the innings with Will T at the other end. The former made 21 before he was caught, which saw Ben Pom Rolfs in at five. Will batted well for his 43 before perfectly picking out the only man in sight at square leg. Ben batted very nicely, including a sweetly struck six over mid-on, minutes after telling Will he didn't know how to hit the ball in the air.... However, he did fall soon after for 29, attempting to cut one which was a little too straight, and a lower order collapse ensued. Jacob fell for nine, Zac for one, while Elliott, Kempo and Jordan scored a combined total of 0 to leave Jake stranded on 16 and the score on 132 all out. The less said about Kempo's shambolic dismissal the better... but it's too good to not talk about. A delivery which landed inches from the bowler's own toes didn't get up more than two foot off the floor, leading to Kempo attempting what looked like a strange sweep-like shot, only to play it 10 minutes too early and turn around on the follow through of his shot to see the ball dribble pathetically on to the base of leg stump. You've got to laugh.

Ancaster's chase started solidly with the openers playing our openers, Jordan and Elliott, well. It wasn't until Jake was brought into the attack that Lindum got going, with a good catch behind the stumps from Max kick starting the fall of wickets. Benno got the other opener too with the simple catch being taken by Kempo at mid-on, before Elliott's finger-splitting catch at cow-corner earned Zac his first wicket of the season. Jake had another caught behind by Max at the second attempt, and things got very interesting when Rolfsy took two quick LBWs in his second spell. However, a lack of runs on the board proved costly, and Elliott's late wicket thanks to a catch from Jake wasn't enough to steer Lindum to victory as Ancaster got home with three wickets in hand and four overs remaining. On to BBH next week.