'Big Red' takes '5fer' to Remain Unbeaten.

After a week of rain and training being cancelled, we needed to hit our straps early to keep the momentum flowing. With Tomlinson out at a wedding, Bauer deciding to to sell clothing and Dewhurst dropping back into the 2's, the 1's welcomed back the mercurial Aaron Onyon back after missing the early season with a broken hand, a 68.4% fit and my Yoga partner Dan Taylor came into the side along with debutant young gun Joe Thompson. After winning the toss, we decided to take advantage of a flat wicket and bat first. Morley-Barnes fell early being caught behind and Redmond, bless him, found the only man on the leg side (Yet again!). Lindsay, who's lottery numbers were in hot demand, was dropped twice at slip of consecutive balls. After this indifferent start, Cook and Lindsay, built a platform to build on with the latter finding the straight boundaries with ease before being 'caught behind' ish, well, he didn't hit it, for 26. With us knowing that we were a couple of partnerships away from passing a desired 200, wickets kept falling at the other end to Cook with Onyon, W.Taylor and Bishop all chipping in without kicking on. Not managing to bat 50 overs and being bowled out for 169, Cook making 67, we knew we had a stiff task ahead of us.

With the bowling line up we have at our disposal, we knew that if we were going to go down, we were going down giving it 110%. However, with our bowlers being in form and with our experience, a couple early wickets meant we would be sniffing victory. It was Onyon who struck first with a lovely edge finding the bucket like hands of Lindsay at first slip. 11-1 could of easily been 15-3 if it wasn't for a couple of dropped chances, but we all know, it happens to the best of us. A moment of magic was produced by the newly engaged gloveman, Bishop, running the dangerous overseas player out with only one stump to hit. Aaron and Joe, steaming in with genuine pace and bounce, quickly reduced Alford to 65-6 but with A.White at the other end, we always knew that his wicket was key. It was 'Big Red' Joe who got the prized wicket with a smart catch from Morley-Barnes at mid off. Peatman continued to take wickets reducing Alford to 105-9 and when Cook took the wicket of the number 11 batsmen, victory was ours by 59 runs. The superb opening pair of Onyon and Peatman finished with figures of 8-0-26-3 and 12-0-35-5.

20 points, an unbeaten start in the league and a team meal at Newport Arch, you couldn't ask for anymore! UTL.