Rosaneri fell for the classic rope a dope as Buckhurst Hill literally wiped the floor with us. 

In the build up to the game all the talk had been about what a poor season our hosts had been having and the fact that they had emailed us to say that they would be weak/medium at best. 

The warm up routine of the opening bowler should have told its own story and after a fifteen second run up he promptly delivered Mr Bell an 80mph beamer missed his nose by six inches. The guy from the other end was accurate and got the ball to pop around off a length. 

The opening barrage lasted for 16 overs at an energy sapping slow test match over rate with Rosaneri losing wickets at regular intervals. The fight was most certainly there though and eventually stability returned. 

Bowlers 3 and 4 made an opening seam attack of the like that we had not seen before. This was most certainly not weak. 

The Rosaneri rear guard added a flurry of late runs to post a reasonable total at tea. The partnership between Mat and Gareth was particularly beneficial. 

Buckhurst Hill set about their task with gusto and got off to a very solid start before Gareth made the breakthrough with a snick that Bell gathered with a diving glory catch. This gave the Pinks hope and moments later a crucial slip catch was spilled. 

A period of run starvation and control when Jim and Nick were bowling gave Rosaneri thoughts of an unlikely draw, but wickets just wouldn’t fall and the grim reaper simply took his time to bring the game to a Buckhurst Hill victory.   

It was a funny old game but the pinks did themselves proud. Last year we could have easily been skittled for under a 100 but this year we had enough to recover and give ourselves a chance. The luck just wasn’t with us in the field with any chances for fielders falling just short of catching range. On another day we could have pulled off a famous victory.