Lindum Scrape Vital Win Over Bourne

It had been a long week at the home of cricket. Everyone was very tired after putting on the best floodlit tournament you can imagine. Waking up to a picture in a group message of Benjamin Rolfs laid flat out in a tent at 830am on gameday morning showed just what a challenge the day was to be! With an injury to Will Wright and former Lindum legend John Farrell depleting the side by having his wedding in Italy the side were also missing skipper Charlie Tomlinson and Richard Bishop. This was going to be a massive effort if we were going to squeeze a win.

Lindum won the toss and skipper Jake Benson elected to field as the rain on Friday seemed to suggest the best time to bowl was early on as if anything could be extracted from the surface it would be first up. Bourne began their innings rather chancily as their openers both gave opportunities that we were unable to snaffle. Aaron Onyon struck first as Joe Peatman held on to an incredibly sharp chance at gully. Arron dismissed the other opener for 14 and the scoreboard read 33-2. James Dewhurst struck next, clean bowling their number four for 7 and the introduction of the now fully wide awake Rolfs saw the board show 58-4 as he dismissed the aging but still dangerous Christmas for 4. Joe Peatman roared in from the Mainwaring Road end and blew two quick wickets away to see Bourne reeling at 66-6. When Rolfs trapped Carl Wilson LBW for 22 there were no smiles in the Bourne camp at 70-7. Over the next hour and a half though we saw the type of response from the Bourne middle order that we ourselves have often shown as they rallied to 115-8 when Rolfs got the wicket of Kidd for 37, to 150-9 when the returning Dewhurst bowled Colin Cheer for 8. Hurrah! Tom Dixon was the last man out for 38 caught and bowled for Dewhurst. I will list the bowling figures, I don’t normally do this, but they all bowled better than their figures suggest.

Aaron Onyon 14-0-48-2
James Dewhurst 9.5-0-32-3
Benjamin Rofs 13-0-48-3
Joe Peatman 11-2-30-2
Jake Benson 1-0-2-0

Skipper Benson rang the changes throughout and although our catching wasn’t as good as it has been of late the lads were relentless in their work ethic. Going into a Mundy/Taylor tea we were confident of chasing the score down.

Pierce Morley-Barnes and Osama Rabbani opened up and got the boys off to a good start playing a wide array of positive shots whilst remaining stout in defence. Pierce was the first to depart when he was yorked by what looked to be the ball of the day from Matt Kidd for 19 with the score on 39. Ozzy was joined by Will Taylor and the score was pushed to 61, mainly by Will playing a very good game of three man cricket between himself the bowler and leg gully. Teasing him close in before flicking it past him and then smacking it into the ground short of him when he had retreated! Ozzy was unfortunately run out for 25 and Will was caught and bowled by Tom Dixon misjudging a slog sweep and the scoreboard was sat at 63-3. David Spokes and George Butler came and went as the white wall played back to a ball he should have got forward to and Butler was ‘adjudged’ to be caught behind and we were teetering on 71-5. Tom Lindsay was bowled for 0 to leave us on 82-6 to allow Onyon to join Rolfs at the crease. Aaron played in his naturally positive way to score 19 off 13 balls before he looped one to cover with the score on 107-7. Peatman came and went and it was a pretty quiet patio as skipper Benson prepared himself to bat. As Jake put his helmet on there was a look in his eye, he seemed to be in a different place to the rest of us. Was it a steely determination or just the fact he needed to sleep for a week after captaining five nights of T20 in a row? Jake joined Rolsfy and the runs began to come. At first they were a gentle trickle as the Bourne intensity was there for all to see, they could sense victory. A nudge here and a nurdle there and the scoreboard moved from 110-8 to 122-8. A quick single to mid-wicket when there wasn’t really one was the first sign of nerves from Bourne. They knew they had to take wickets but they also had to be conscious of saving runs. They squeezed the field in to save one but this just made the bad ball even easier to punish. Rolfs was pushing and running hard whilst Jake was planting his big size 14 half way down the track and being as stubborn as usual! The runs continued to flow and the defining moment came when 25 runs were needed with the score on 142-8 when Rolfs launched one back over mid on that landed just short of being 6. That sucked the energy and life out of the Bourne side. At that point, even though more nervous times were to come, that victory was going to be ours. The winning run came off of a wide and the lads celebrated like it was 1999. Rolfs 61 not out and Benson 12 not out stole the headlines as they put on 57 for the 9th wicket to win the game but it truly was an incredible team performance from all involved. When you consider the opposition had all week to plan and rest up for the match whereas some of our players were involved in their eighth consecutive day of cricket it was a phenomenal achievement.

Time to rest up and get ready for the biggest game of the season on Monday. A win at Louth would push us close to that fourth place and entry into Grand Final Weekend. From where we were sat in that dressing room at Alford on May 26th we have come a long long way!

Report by James Kempton