Wettleham 2.0

This Sunday saw the Academy side travel to Nettleham, once again under the captaincy of James Kempton. Lindum batted first with youth and experience opening the innings under the guise of Zac and Nabil. This opening pair put on a partnership of 45 before the loss of the first wicket with Nabil falling LBW for 19 but not before playing some of his customary elegant drives and cuts and I also detected increased speed between the wickets! Zac played a fluent innings, that I think has been waiting to emerge this season for his 21, with a couple of very nice fours clipped off his legs. Sam Nutall looked to carry on his recent fine form with some nice shots as he looked to form a partnership with Anton. This saw a very bizarre series of events as Anton looked to play a shot and missed which was taken by Nettleham’s keeper. After a few seconds, with Anton presuming the ball to be dead, he left his crease only for the keeper to swipe off the bails and Kempo at square leg raised the dreaded finger. Anton left the pitch and Dave Knowles came to the crease only for Anton to be recalled as the umpires had a conflab and felt the ball was dead and therefore Anton was not out. First ball after returning Anton went for big shot, top edged it to a fielder to take the simplest of catches, only for it to be spilled. Anton then cross batted the next ball straight back the bowler for a boundary. I’m not saying the Chuckle Brothers play cricket, but if they did…….

There had already been a couple of interruptions for rain and an early tea was taken during which Kempo and Wes consulted the trusty radar and ascertained that a full game was unlikely. This saw Kempo encourage the remaining batsmen to ‘go for it’ which they all did, unfortunately getting out for next to nothing, although Kempo was almost balletic as he looked to eek out a few extra runs in the most creative manner. Anyway Lindum were all out for 93 off 31.5 overs.

Nettleham got off to a solid start with both their opening batsmen playing a classy innings. Although our bowlers bowled quite tightly, wickets were hard to come by, actually impossible to come by as none were taken although there was particularly tight bowling from Rishabh and Kempo. It is also worth giving a shout out to stand in keeper Sam Sherrif who did a sterling job behind the stumps. Once again rain meant some interruptions but this didn’t stop Nettleham reaching 80 for no wicket before the rain came in earnest and the game was abandoned. The five points to Lindum and 10 to Nettleham is probably a fair reflection of the state of the game before it was called off.