With Kurt Akyuz and the mystery man (Cuz – welcome back) making their first appearances of the season the Rosaneri bandwagon rolled on into the unknown against Woodford Wells; and although all the batsmen will be hoping to go back to the postage stamp-esque pitch the bowlers might be having second thoughts on what turned out to be a record breaking day.
Captain McHugh won the toss and elected to field and Mat and Gareth kept things relatively tight. Gareth made the early break through but with what was to follow Rosaneri fans may wished he hadn’t!
Bam! – The former Indian U19 no. 3 hit his first ball from Mat for 4 and then went on to punish good balls and bad smashing them between midwicket and mid-on for a plethora of 4s and 6s clearing the short boundary & trees alike.
Jim’s introduction caused some doubt with the swinging ball and he managed to snaffle a good caught & bowled. Nick also made use of the not inconsiderable slope and bowled a batsman round his legs.
But heads began to drop as the no.3 continued to smash everyone to all points of the compass. Even Slaps went for 46 runs in 3 overs but did pick up 2 wickets (1 LBW and 1 caught by Big Mike), however the score just kept going up; past 200; then past 250.
Then came perhaps the turning point in the hearts of the Rozzers; the all conquering no.3 hit a rocket back towards Nick who managed to pouch it for a quality caught & bowled but only after he had scored 164!
In the dying overs the Woodford batsmen continued to play like IPL regulars and smashed what looked like the proverbial cricket score: 339. Surely it would be an unthinkable total to achieve?
As you can imagine the mood at tea was quiet & subdued, surely we had no chance of getting anywhere near their score.
How wrong we were!
Tony and Big Mike purposefully set about putting some runs on the board. Things started promisingly and the score started ticking over, an enormous six hit by Big Mike to the far corner of the ground a portent of things to come.
However all too soon Tony had his middle stump uprooted by a surprise full toss and then Kurt followed soon after, gloving a lifting ball to the keeper.
But then a motivated looking Bloater strode to the wicket. He set about the Woodford bowlers and the ball disappeared to all parts and at drinks (21 overs) we were still in touch with the run rate at 150 for 2.
But then disaster struck the first ball after drinks. After a partnership of 129 Big Mike (44) was beaten by the young leg spinner and was out stumped.
Slaps (14) and Gareth (10) tried to get on with things but then disaster struck:
Andy was caught at extra cover the ball after reaching his 3rd century for the club – 198 for 6 and only 9 overs left. Surely the game was up now?
Not so…Jim & Bones went about the still enormous run chase with grit, determination and with some fantastic shots saw the Rozzers past their previous highest ever score.
With 2 overs to go the rate was up to around 6 per ball, which on this pitch wasn’t outside the realms of possibility. But the dream was not to be and at the close of play we had amassed 305 runs. Jim and Bonehead had put on 107 in only 9 overs with both of them making their highest scores for the Club.
The chase had been fantastic, enthralling players and fans from both camps with several club batting records being smashed in the process.
We had almost chased 339, we had got so close and most of all we had batted convincingly and with guts…the boys did good!