On Saturday 27 May, the 3rds played away at Wantage against Challow & Childrey 3rds.
Having lost the toss (again!) and been asked to bat, we lost our first wicket in the opening over, with Nick Angus timing his leg-side flick too well falling to a good running catch at fine leg. We scored at a steady rate of 4.5 runs per over but steadily lost a wicket every 5 overs too. The standout innings came from Alex Owen who scored 79 from 82 balls including 12 boundaries, three of which almost decapitated the Challow fielders trying to save the single. Our innings came to an end in the 40th over – our score of 178 setting Challow a reasonable target.
We must have eaten too much at tea (underhand tactics of Challow to have laid on such a good spread) because we made an unusually poor start to our fielding. The Challow openers came out all guns blazing and after 10 overs had raced along to 61-0. This prompted the early introduction to our attack of Swiley in an attempt to slow the game down. The change worked immediately with Freddie Smith taking an excellent catch on the deep mid-wicket boundary. From that point onwards we fielded to our usual high standard, taking a further three catches and a stumping.
Swiley and Dave Spilsbury bowled excellent spells, picking up wickets regularly. Swiley finished with 6-36 and Dave with 3-27; the final wicket fell to Mukesh and another fine catch by Freddie. Challow were all out for 119, giving us a winning margin of 58 runs.
Next match is 2nd place in the table vs 3rd place as we take on Stokenchurch at Cokethorpe.