Sunday was a real high point in the life of Rosaneri Cricket Club. Not because of the result, but because of the fact that we bowled Enfield Cricket Club out for 151. Even more credit must be recorded by the fact that the Enfield team contained some good batsmen, none more so than their 1st XI superstar Neil Tilley.
The mood in the Rosaneri camp was good from the very first minute that the squad began to arrive at the ground. A 35 over match was agreed and Captain Underwood surprised Rosaneri fans by opening the bowling with Marcus and Pits. This maverick move paid off in style as Marcus made an early breakthrough and Pits bowled with the consistency of Glen McGrath.
Jim and Slaps then came on to turn the run rate into a crawl and both chipped in with wickets as Enfield got themselves into a mess. At this point Captain Underwood had everything under control and was licking his lips at the prospect of introducing his two strike bowlers to finish things off.
Then came what should have been the defining moment of the contest. Tills was caught by Bloater of a big leading edge to mid on. Rosaneri celebrated as one and the mood was off victory.
However, Enfield batted all the way down to 11 and a couple top guns got the home side out of jail and posted a total for the pinks to chase.
Rosaneri lost Mark Cox to a beauty in the second over, but Big Mike and Shell set about a steady and assured partnership to assume total control of the contest. At 45 for 1 Rosaneri supporters believed the dream was about to become a reality.
But then disaster struck and from nowhere Shell was run out. This was a massive blow and Rosaneri were rattled. Quick wickets followed through a combination of top bowling and more running stupidity.
Rosaneri were all but beaten when Pits bravely went out to try and support Slaps into edging the total towards respectability. Pits batted immaculately and frustrated Enfield as he added 40 with Slaps for the last wicket.
Eventually Slaps was left stranded as Pits holed out 33 runs short of the target.
Yes we were beaten, but we competed. And for the second week running we had our opponents thinking that they were beaten at tea. This was another positive game for the Pinks and a day for the club that we can all be proud of.