Good pitch, rapid outfield, long batting line up. Skip lost toss and was inserted; top order hit the ball well but wickets kept falling. Theo (41) & Al (70 odd) put us in a good position, but a typical Straggler collapse ensued, bringing Nigel (50*) and Simon to the crease who put on 50 odd together for the last wicket, leaving the captain the luxury of a declaration at 283-9.
Tenterden got off to a blistering start making the most of the hard new ball, which wasn’t swinging, and the fast outfield. One of their openers had his 50 in no time, his partner was on about 5 at the time. Toby bowled a cracking 10 over spell, the best I’ve ever seen him bowl, beating the edge for fun. He got a few, deserved, wickets late on in his spell which left us with Timir Chanda (Indian pro) and Ben Price (arguably one of the more talented strikers of a ball in the county), who put on a decent partnership. Price hit what must have been a 60 ball hundred, and it looked as if the game would be over before the last hour. However, when we removed Chanda, it just became a matter of how many Price would add before he would try one shot too many. They had no batting to come. We just managed this in time to mop up the final few wickets.
A truly great game, nearly 600 runs in the day, and a match that both teams could have won with 15 minutes to go…
