After a rain interrupted start to the season, the 2nd XI surprisingly found themselves in the idyllic surroundings of Sefton Park, Stoke Poges, home of Stoke Green\s 3rd XI. The ground was a marked improvement on Stoke Green\s HQ, no rabbit hutch dressing rooms and no East/West facing square either, that so favoured the side bowling second. Maybe this league isn\t so bad after all?
Sadly, as far as this match was concerned, that was where the good news ended. After losing the toss on a saturated pitch, we did well to reach 200, but as the pitch dried out, it got better and better for batting and Stoke Green possessed enough capable batsmen to press home their advantage. Had the toss gone the other way, we may have had a different game on our hands.
As it was, we struggled in the opening overs, and only when Stuart Savage came to the wicket did we begin to assert some authority. His dismissal, quickly followed by Paul Cooper, left us 74-4, but Derek Milsom dropped anchor, and firstly with Chris Hall, and then a belligerent Graham Dare, managed to recover some respectability. A quickfire 22 from Dave Small towards the end took us past 200.
When Stoke Green replied, the wicket had dried out a lot, but the new ball still caused them problems, with Ben Sturgess getting several passed Din\s bat. However, the batsmen survived to add 67 before Din fell to Rob Smith. Macmillan then hit 25, and Shiek a rapid 12, while Mohammed was content to push ones at the other end.
The run out of Shiek, courtsey of a direct hit from cover by Paul Cooper, gave Wooburn new hope, but new batsman Cannon revealed a good eye to hit an unbeaten 46 and carry Stoke Green home with 4 overs to spare. Mohammed finished on 80.
A disappointing day, compounded by the fact that it started raining as soon as the players began leaving the field. Surely, it must get better next week.
