Grayshott 2nds away this week, lots of buddies, lots of fellas, you know the drill.

The return of declaration cricket represents a quandary for captains, while the pitch may suggest batting first, it opens up the option for the team chasing to assess the chase and shut up shop if needed.

Smiler won the toss (he always calls heads Greener), we bowled.

Scribe’s match reports may become a bit monotonous when it comes to our bowling performances, but the fact remains that Scribe has played five matches this season and seen 50 wickets taken. Relentless.

This week was no different, and while the standard of batting was not what it has always been at Grayshott, the bowling was again impressive.

Charlie Ridley and the returning James Goldsworth with a hard new ball and a hard deck, the anticipation in the cordon was palpable. Goldsworth struck early, the opener could only fence at a brute of a ball that took the shoulder of the bat and looped to gully.

While Goldsworth brought the fire and brimstone, Ridley was all craft. Unfortunately for Ridley, the batsmen could simply not get near the ball, one delivery in particular arced into the right handed number three before jagging away off the seam and Nicholls took the ball in front of Scribe at first slip. Grayshott somehow contrived to not lose another wicket to the opening attack, more through luck than judgment.

Ben Read and Hally Baldock were brought into the attack and immediately reaped the rewards of bowling full and straight, picking up a couple of LBWs. The obdurate opener was brilliantly caught by Goldsworth, diving to his right at mid-on, and Grayshott were in serious trouble at 41-6.

At this point should really have finished things off, where we were ruthless against Fernhurst, here we allowed the lower order too many freebies. Grayshott someone scrambled to 87 all out in 34 overs. Ridley and Goldsworth set the tone up top, Baldock and Read showed their experience and were too much for the middle order. Pager does what Pager does (it pains Scribe to say, but he’s a deeply underrated bowler, always does a job for whatever team he is in), taking three wickets when the momentum was starting to shift to Grayshott.

Chasing a low total can be troublesome, but we got off to a very solid start. Harry Falkiner and Alex Warren were very tight in defence and punished any loose deliveries, the long boundaries meant there were plenty of opportunities for twos and threes, these were not always taken.

Everything appeared to be going as planned before Warren bottom edged a short ball straight into a rather uncomfortable spot, you’ve all seen the pictures of a prostrate Warren.

Baldock came to the crease with some serious intent and played some nice strokes before picking out extra-cover with a well timed cut shot. Smiler glittered briefly before splicing a pull stroke to mid-wicket. Nicholls joined the solid Falkiner, starting slowly before unleashing some muscular pull strokes.

Falkiner top edged one to a running mid-wicket, who took a good catch over his shoulder, another mature innings of 32 for an ever improving batsman. Scribe and Read came and went, before the returning Warren knocked off the winning runs accompanied by Page. We won six down inside 25 overs.

Some telling contributions from the younger members of the team and a couple of areas to work on;

Running between the wickets - it was bad, never before have so many twos been turned into ones.
Batsmen being ruthless - taking ownership to see the game home when in.
Throwing - this is mainly aimed at the captain, let’s just say his radar needs some adjusting.