The 1st of the month signified another fixture for the unbeaten Wooburn Narks, and this time it would be hosted at the formidable fortress of Nark Park. Young skipper Barker continued to back the youth of the club picking a young team and informing the team he would be heading down to the nets for a pre match session. This inspired 10 of the team to be at the ground for 11am for an England style warm up. When 11th man Gerry turned up well before the start time, after the shock had died down of this miracle, the two captains strode out to the middle. The sun was starting to cook what looked like a wooburn road wicket. However, when Tring Park won the toss we thought it would be a long 40 overs in the field but surprisingly their captain wanted to see us have a bat.
This led to Cooper and Barker heading into the pressure cooker at Nark Park. A tricky and tidy opening spell from Tring’s opening left arm bowler led to a frustratingly slow 19 of 20 overs for Coops, however his opening partner Barker got on with things scoring 45 hitting the first bomb of the day for the Narks leaving wooburn on a total of 70-1. This led to the classy talent of Webber striding out at 3. Once again in true James Vince style he got himself set with a start to 12 before seeing one of the most bizarre dismissals to be seen in league cricket history. What looked like a phenomenal straight drive was palmed straight up by the young leg spinner only to be caught by the diving forward mid-off. This meant the first of the 2 club legends in the side took to the crease. A punishing score of 22 from Bushnell set wooburn in a great position at drinks at 99-2. With Coops still on his painfully slow 19 he had the audacity to ask the skipper what he wanted him to do now. The response of ‘go larger’ from Barker was surprisingly answered as on a free hit Cooper goes back and across and not only gets the ball to the river but clears the river as a whole, marking the second bomb of the innings. However, another bottled 50 for the young gun meant he was bowled swiping across the line for 38. Bushnell continued to turn the screw with powerful leg side hitting as he was joined by Wheeler who went on to score 35, hitting another Nark bomb making the count go to 3 for the day. After Bushnell had been given out by a plum LBW, he duly made James Dolan know how wrong he was to trigger him out before the firepower in the middle order was released. The first of this bomb hitting trio was Johnson who was unable to get really going hitting two 4s to achieve a score of 8 before being given LBW. This set Wooburn up at 150-5 after 30 overs, meaning skipper Barker was asking Gerry to get us to 250 as he walked out at 7. Not only did Gerry take his captains advice on he exceeded them, hitting 4 maximums and clearing the trees by the river and probably breaking house windows the other side of the river in a punishing, aggressive innings. When Wheeler fell stumped as he charged down the wicket looking to continue going large it led to huge cheers and an electric atmosphere as the clubs bright young spark Matt O’Regan cruised with pure class into the middle. On briefing from the set Gerry the plan ‘bat on ball, let’s get 250’ these two then not only achieved that but scored 45 runs in just 4 overs and 1 ball. O’Regan scored a quick fire 17 not out including a large bomb from a slog sweep in the final over followed by Gerry hitting another one of his 4 maximums meaning the final over was to go for 14 runs creating an incredible total of 257-6 for the Narks to defend.
After a quick lunch break and Gerry informing the captain that his blistering, left arm swing bowling wouldn’t be available today after a tragic accident between him and a lawnmower, Barker took the new ball and started excellently well trapping Kempster for 0 on the 3rd ball of the innings for LBW, the appeal that went up actually meant Kempster was walking off before the signal had been given and this certainly let Tring Park know we were up for this. Then a couple overs later Barker dismissed the other opening batsmen for 8 as he got one to stick in the pitch and clean up off stump putting Tring at 16-2. With Cuthbert bowling tidily the other end it wasn’t until he went for a magnificent caught and bowled only to end up splitting the webbing on his hand and having to walk off injured. This meant Tom Wright was chucked the ball and took his chance excellently taking Trings no.3 bat for 15, through an unbelievable catch by Coops back peddling and taking it one handed, among the cries of ‘Greta would love that’ after Coops’ Thursday night, Tring were left 42-3. Then Barker takes his 3rd wicket meaning Tring can’t try to rebuild as he cleaned up Harry Grinham for 14 leaving him with figures of 3-16 a true captains display. This led to the spinners and appearance of J.Dolan with ball in hand. This in turn led to some tight bowling at the middle order and allowed Wheeler and Bushnell’s spin to pick up a singular wicket each, however an outstanding innings from Graham of 63 meant Tring were starting to rebuild well at 204-6 with 5 overs left putting them well in reach of the total. However, the game changed as Barker made a bold call to chuck the ball to Ben W. He proceeded to bowl one of the most controversial overs in Narks history. The first ball was given a wide, to be followed by Tring Park’s no.8 bat scoring a 4 and then a 6 putting them onto 215-6. However, a confident Webber backed himself to take the wicket and that’s exactly what he did as a spiralling high catch was held by Barker to give Webber his first wooburn wicket. Then as the batsmen crossed Webber could get his teeth into a battle with the set Graham on 63. However, the battle was short lived as Webber took out his middle stump the following ball giving the young lad a hat-trick ball in his first ever over for Wooburn. Barker gave him an attacking field with 2 slips a gully and plenty of men round the bat, the Nark Park went silent with anticipation, Webber bounded in from his mark and released the ball which a huge grunt of effort only to send the ball flying down the leg side. He’d bowled a wide on a hat-trick ball and with screams of ‘fine’ around the field Webber knew he needed to redeem himself, and that’s exactly what he did clean bowling Trings number 10 giving him an over a 3-13 with a legal ball hat-trick in his first ever Wooburn over. This remarkable 5 minutes left Tring 216-9 and wooburn 1 wicket away from a continued unbeaten run. Tom Wright returned to bowl and duly obliged taking his second wicket and bowling Tring Park out for 220 after 38 overs. Cries of ‘And now they’ll believe us’ rippled around the Nark Park and Wooburn sat pretty at the top of the league ahead of a big night of celebrations for the youthful and talented New Wooburn 1s team.
