A
hot and sunny Oak Meadow witnessed history in the making
as both Andy Jackson and Gareth Johnson made centuries
in Waltham's innings and this laid the platform for
what turned out to be a comfortable winning draw.
Skipper Gearing won the toss and elected to bat.
Waltham started brightly before the loss of Ashton
with the score on 21. Johnson then strode to the
crease to partner Jackson and the pair soon began scoring
easily without the need for risk and with Johnson even
hitting the metronome that is Tom Clay out of the attack
with a pick up over square-leg for six. The game
entered a crucial stage with new bowlers in the batsmen's
firing line, but Jackson soon combined power with sublime
timing to hit Waller for a series of sixes with one
of them luckily enough bouncing off the pavillion window.
The buffet arrived early for Jackson
and Johnson with the introduction of Delaney. His
"All you can hit" mixture of full tosses and
long hops started Waltham's push for a big score under
the sun. The loose deliveries kept coming from
all quarters and were despatched with regularity to
the boundary for the rest of the innings.
Jackson
and Johnson brought up immaculate centuries within the
closing overs and in doing so not only posted a daunting
245-1, but broke the 22 year old B.C.L Div. 1 2nd wicket
partnership with a mammoth 224*. It is fair to
say that both Jackson and Johnson could have gone on
all afternoon such was their domination of the bowling.
After the interval Hawley came out all guns blazing.
Unfortunately for Waltham, Gearing took one of
these bullets on his left little finger, however, he
showed he's from strong stock as he soon re-located
the wandering digit with his bare hands and continued
bowling. The runs continued flowing like a breached
dam until the reliable Rashid pegged back Clay's stumps,
but the real damage began for Hawley with the introduction
of Jackson as he stopped the runflow and took a couple
of wickets.
Anwar and Johnson were introduced
into the attack and Johnson produced his best bowling
performance of the season proving economical and having
a little more nip about him than usual. Hawley
continued to pursue the win even when wickets tumbled,
but soon the draw looked inevitable. A couple
of inventive bowling changes couldn't weed out the last
Hawley wicket and the game ended a draw in Waltham's
favour.
Finally, credit must go to the Waltham
groundstaff in producing another 400+ run pitch. |