REPORT: ANDREW JONES
Banbury 4th’s travelled to Kidlington to take on Kidlington 3rd’s with a strong youth policy having been employed at the selection table with a team of 3 seniors and 8 very capable juniors.
Acting skipper Frosty promptly lost the toss, but was quite happy given Kidlington elected to bat fist on a decidedly ‘green’ strip. The young guns applied themselves to the bowling admirably under the continuing onslaught of Andy Oliver from Kidlington and wickets fell at regular intervals. However, the one key wicket of Andy Oliver eluded Banbury (although we won’t mention Frosty’s ‘tough chance’ in the slips when he was in mid 30’) and in the end he scored 109 out of the team total of 170 all out. The bowling was a fantastic combination of pace and swing from Adnan Iqbal with 1-30 of 8 overs, J Berry with 3-26 of 6 overs and James King with 2-21 of 6 overs, gentle spin from Justin Lambden with 2-41 of 8 overs and some real clever bowling from Charlie Hill with 2-12 of 6 overs (including a fantastic one handed caught and bowled).
Richard Lambden, fielding at mid-off, was peppered with a serious of full blooded drives from Andy Oliver, but never retreated and in the end claimed 2 very good outfield catches, including the one to dismiss Oliver. Ian Reynolds did a great job behind the stumps, with 2 catches, a stumping and only 3 byes.
With Banbury’s turn to bat, everyone was confident of chasing down the total and a good initial start was made by Frosty and Ian Reynolds opening up. But, disaster then struck with Banbury loosing 3 wickets in 3 overs with score on 12. It all then came down to Richard Lambden as the only ‘senior’ player left to rally the team in the chase of 170. Richard and Ally Berry shared a good partnership of 48, before Ally was out for13. Richard was then joined by Charlie Hill and the slow recovery process for Banbury started. Although Richard and Charlie started slowly, the momentum gathered and the partnership grew, with Charlie especially growing in confidence taking 12 of one over from B Ford’s left arm spin and Richard running some great 2’s on those tired legs. Richard and Charlie took the score to 141 with a partnership of 81, at which point Banbury needed 30 runs off the last 5 overs with 6 wickets left.
But, disaster stuck again with Richard and Charlie going in consecutive overs – Richard for a great innings of 68 and Charlie for a very well put together 37. Further wickets then fell which made the ask look even harder, but with 2 overs and 17 runs needed to win, there was some brief hope when Adnan Iqbal sent his first ball for a towering straight six. But on trying to repeat the shot next ball, Adnan was stumped and so went Banbury’s hope’s of a win.
In the end, Banbury finished 11 run’s short against a good quality and experienced Team so a lot of positives for the young guy’s can be taken from this, especially the bowling effort from everyone. The opposing captain was really impressed with the young guy’s performance, saying it was one of the most enjoyable matches they had played so really well done to everyone.
Thanks again to everyone who played, including stand-in skipper Frosty (even though he kept losing count of everyone’s overs), and Richard Swinford for pulling a full team together on the day and Mike King for transporting half the team to Kidlington and for umpiring for us for the day.