Full Fixture Information

Result Descriptiom

Lost by 166 runs

Man of the Match

Rupert for his bowling (but there wasn't really one)

Champagne Moment

Andrew's great catch from Rupert's bowling

Teddy Bear Moment

Tom Gordon turning up late and fielding for 20 overs in his blue shirt.

Full Match Report

Strokemakers ? 266 ? 6 declared
East Meon ? 100 all out

For the match report see last week.

It did feel a bit like d?j? vu. I think we probably bowled better this week, we didn?t drop as many easy catches as last week. But the result wasn?t much different.

But if you want to know what happened. It went a bit like this.

We won the toss. I looked at our batting and our bowling and thought we?d probably have a better chance of holding out for a draw than scoring enough runs to bowl them all out. Probably a bit defensive, but we weren?t replete with batsman this week.

As it was, we started pretty well. Rupert from the top end and Wayne from the playground end bowled nicely. Wayne picked up the first wicket (LBW) in his 2nd over (13-1) and Rupert the second (very well caught by Andrew (me)) in his 4th over (24-2).

Wayne and Rupert continued to bowl well with Wayne finishing up with 5-1-25-1 and Rupert 7-1-20-1. Matt S replaced Wayne and while the scorebook suggested he bowled a 10 ball over first up ? none of us remember it like that but he bowled well but without much luck to end up with 7-0-54-0 and Josh Haslett replaced Rupert and ended up with 6-0-43-1.

But to be honest the bowling was tough. I could be generous and say that we had them in two minds most of the time, not sure whether to hit us for six or four. But with 17 sixes and 24 fours there was a lot of looking for balls in the hedge.

Ollie Atkinson came on and found himself bowling against their young left-hander who hit 7 sixes and one four in his 52 (retired) and hit Ollie for three sixes in his first over. Dave Rees came on and despite being hit to all corners, also managed to bowl three of their batsman to end up with 6-0-56-3. Despite being 97-3 at the 20 over mark, the next 16 overs went for 170 and they ended up on 266 at tea.

East Meon may have climbed higher mountains in the past, but it wasn?t to be today. Despite an elegant (and expected) 59 from Ollie A at the top of the innings, the rest of us capitulated. Their opener seemed to have the ball on the string and ended up with 5-34 from his 8 overs, Olly Cooke was the only other batsman to end up in double figures, but to be honest we weren?t good enough and they were too good.

Moments of note in the 2nd innings, include Josh H taking a huge heave to his second ball to be caught at mid-on for a duck. Tom Gordon hitting two fours and looking pretty solid for 9, AJ Powney playing his first match for the village for a long time batted well (or for a long time) before being run out by Ollie looking to farm the strike, Chris Moor strode to the wicket with an over my dead body approach and faced three or four overs without scoring and ended up 0 not out. But that?s slightly scraping the barrel ? there really weren?t many moments of note.

And that?s all there is to say really. For the second week in a row we?d lost by 160 runs or so with ten overs left to survive.