Kenton 3rd XI vs Ealing 4th XI

Ealing 4th XI traveled to Kenton CC in a determined mood after a first week loss to Osterley 3rd XI. Ealing won the toss and elected to bowl on a wicket which the local lawn bowls team would be delighted to play on and an outfield as long as a hipster’s beard. After a short bout of stretches, catching drills and clearing the grass snakes out of the outfield we got cracking.

Bosworth opened the bowling in the first over, and proceeded to bowl a 5th stump line outside off for the next 5 overs. Luckily Manraj Rattan bowling from the other end managed to hit the stumps on a regular basis taking 3 wickets and getting us off to a great start.

We managed to keep it tight in the middle overs and continued to take wickets, 2 sharp caught and bowled’s by Parums and 1 for Mayuran took well down leg by Brown. With Kenton 6 down and one Kenton batsman set we needed to make a breakthrough and it came with a run out by Bosworth flicking a straight drive onto the stumps at the non-strikers end with the set batsman out of his ground. (safe to say it wasn’t meant but he’s claiming it) Bosworth took another wicket with Manraj and Sanraj taking 1 a piece to finish off the tail.

Kenton 3rd XI all out for 115 in 38.2 overs – 116 to chase in 45 overs easy win right?

Parums and Sanraj opened the batting and got us off to a solid start, but a loss of a couple of wickets to Kenton’s captain, lead to Brown and Dilleigh steadying the ship with the latter scoring a solid 22 runs before losing his wicket. Sajee and Brown took the score to 105 for 4, before Brown lost his wicket also on 22.

“We will be fine only 11 needed” but how we were wrong, when Lodha was stumped trying make the duke ball the first cricket ball in space off the 3rd ball he faced. Bosworth came in with his fabled forward defense and supported Sajee to level the scores at 115/6.With the game all but won Sajee tried to finish it in style and holed out for 40! Roebuck-Williams pushed the next ball aerially to cover! Taken! Only 2 wickets remained and 1 run needed this had just got interesting!

But Manraj blocked out the over and Bosworth knocked the winning run to get us over the line with 2 wickets to spare in 35.1 overs.

Overall, a good performance on a hard to bat on wicket, the win gets us off the mark ahead of games against Wembley and Middlesex Tamil Sports & Social Club.