Indifferent
weather greeted the players from WSL and Pinkneys Green
on their arrival at Oak Meadow. Skipper Gearing
lifted the gloom by winning the toss and electing to
bat. Waltham were hopeful of posting a dominating
total as Pinkneys only had 9 players when taking the
field.
The Waltham innings started slowly with the loss of
Jackson edging behind to the keeper. In strode
Johnson to the crease and not long after he was joined
by the mercurial Ray Hussain who set about the bowling
with dashing vigour. Hussain made a tricky pitch
look easy with some imperious strokeplay before being
dismissed.
Johnson's watchful approach changed with the fall of
Hussain and he soon turned to all out savagery on the
hapless spinner, despatching him with a mixture of placement
and timing, in one particular over four consecutive
balls were sent to the boundary. Soon Johnson's
dashing blade brought up his 50 and Waltham were looking
solid with Shah providing more than useful support at
the other end punishing the bad ball to the boundary.
These two batsmen put on 70 for the 4th wicket before
Shah was caught at backward point. This only brought
skipper Gearing to the crease and his intent was soon
shown by a characteristic forcing shot through midwicket.
These two batsmen settled into a scoring pattern of
nuding the single and battering the bad ball, illustrated
by Johnson majestically lifting the opening bowler over
the road for six, soon afterwards Johnson brought up
his second 100 of the season before creaming the very
next ball to the midwicket fielder.
The final overs provided a flurry of valuable runs to
the Waltham cause with the only low point being the
reduction of Gearing's batting average to a more Bradman-esque
level, however, a total of 230 looked imposing on a
drying wicket.
Pinkneys opened up all guns blazing after the interval,
keeping up with the required rate for the first eight
overs. Once Jackson and Amir Rasool found their
line and length Pinkneys were on the back foot especially
after losing a couple of quick wickets.
Waltham soon proved they were on top and some innovative
field placings helped both stem the runflow and also
steadily make inroads into the Pinkneys line-up.
Waltham looked to be heading towards victory before
Pinkneys started to supplement their batting line-up
with players previously never seen earlier in the day.
This, along with apocalyptic looking skies threatened
to halt Waltham's progress, however, this reckoned without
the spinning cunning of Faisal who soon wrapped up the
Pinkneys innings before the threatened rain fell.
All in all it was a good Waltham performance that halted
the club's previously poor run of form.
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