An eight wicket defeat at first glance of the bare result will always be looked upon as a thrashing. But in Saturday’s match against a strong North Weald, that was most definitely not the case.
Shell won the toss and did the right thing and elected to bat. The pitch was always going to be slow and low, and the Pinks set about their work against a very strong bowling attack.
Coxy departed in the early exchanges and runs were hard to come by. GBell dropped anchor in his usual fashion and played out maiden over after maiden over. Ben Underwood batted exceptionally well and took the attack to the bowlers with aggressive hitting, but eventually was bowled off his pads.
Others came and went quickly as every effort was made to improve the very low run rate. But at 68 for 7 Rosaneri were in big trouble with overs running out. But things got a whole lot better as Adam Jones and Mat Freeman came together and totally rebuilt a disaster of an innings. The run rate finally picked up and runs flowed in an easy looking fashion. Even when the opening bowlers returned, they both continued in exactly the same groove. Their partnership of 64 is a club record for the 8th wicket.
North Weald were set 133 to win and Rosaneri took to the field with a real chance of achieving a positive result.
The home side began the chase in cautious fashion and the wickets just didn’t come. With so many wicket left the run chase was always going to be within their grasp and they eased in with 2 overs to spare.
However, things could have been a whole lot different if we had held our catches. Three really good chances went begging and after the match the oppo admitted that anything could have happened if we had of got through the pair that guided them home.
The result was not important, but the fact that we competed was massively important. The batting was gritty and purposeful, and the bowling was very good even though a couple of individuals lost their radar for a few balls.
Overall then we can take pride in the fact that we competed against an experienced club 1st XI, and even more importantly we all enjoyed another fantastic day out against a top bunch of chaps.