It was a very grey day as we met at the club and our general mood was not lightened at the thought of one of the most combustable fixtures on the circuit. Last time out at the home fixture they played out for a losing draw and had a few choice words along the way.

Typically the Lordswood pitch is one of the better cricket wickets we will play on offering good bounce and carry for the bowlers and coming on nicely for the batsmen making for a good contest between bat and ball. Will lost the toss and Lordswood chose to make first use of the wicket. 

The conditions were not good for cricket, there was an ominous layer of cloud cover and a force 10 gale blowing making batting a chore and bowling from one end challenging. The first 14 overs were tough attritional cricket with the openers doing a good job of taking of the shine but no real runs being scored. The partnership was eventually broken in the 20th over with the score on 60. 

With a solid start to the innings for both teams we were looking to have some more quiet overs and keep the score to under 220 on what was a flat one and them looking to push on with wickets in hand.As they looked to accelerate we kept on taking wickets and good times and though we never felt on top we knew that we were doing a tidy job. Good tidy overs bowling wicket to wicket from Mehdi Abbas showed good control into the wind and up the hill . figures of 5-0- 27-2 were excellent figures in context of the game.

Adam Senn once agian showed his potential, having just come from net bowling to England and Pakistani internationals he was high on confidence and bowled 3-57 closing the game out with Ivan bowling at the other end. Once again Ivan proving difficult to score from.
Lordswood batted with caution at times and posted 190 we thought that they had set a reasonable score, as it turned out it was quite a bit under par.

WIth Slater and Luff missing from the 2s we had to turn to a new opening partnership of Speller and Hickman. There was none of the new partnership jitters, both looked assured from ball one scoring freely with shots all around the wicket. WIll got to 20 rapidly but it was Charlie who hit the first landmark. Raising his bat for 50 runs containg deft flicks through leg for anything pitched up and one majestic check drive over mid off for 6 which was shot of the day.

WIth a hundred for the taking and Hickman taking the anchor roll Charlie went through the gears eventually playing around a straight one on 75. Charlie should be disapointed that he did not hit his first Kent League hundred but should be happy with the way that he batted and i know that there will be hundreds around the corner. The temperament and skills are all in place.

Will then realising that there was a potential maiden Blackheath Hundred in the offing for him if he went like the clappers went on the attack. Jamal Patterson , currently the leading run scorer in the league was involved in a 50+ run partnership in which he scored 5. This is due to the ferocity of the hitting as will went from 50 to 100 in no time, including plundering 20 of an over and two big sixes.

Will just managed to scrape over the line hitting the winning runs and bringing up the hundred at the same time. Great Captains knock.

In Summary, on a flat track and very difficult conditions we had bowled much better than we had realised. The fielding was not our best. In the batting department we passed with flying colours.
Top of the league and 2 very testing games to go. Any loss of the last 2 games puts immense pressure on us. We need to carry on the good work and finish the season strongly