BOOTH CRICKET CLUB 2nd XI King Cross

Booth 2nds 213-4 bt King Cross 2nds 212-8

A win. After a retched run of results Booth 2nds finally notched up a victory, even though it was by the smallest of margins.

Bowling first on a greasy track, caused by the torrential rain of the previous few days, Booth made an early breakthrough from the most unlikely of sources. One of the King Cross openers, played the ball through mid on, taking a run in the process, he then turned in order to contemplate a second, without noticing Neil Thomas gliding over the ground in chase of the ball. In one foul swoop Neil turned and launched an exocet missile at the stumps, stranding the unsuspecting batsman. Over the next 10 overs King Cross accumulated runs steadily until Morgan Thomas coaxed a false shot out of the King Cross No.3, who was caught at backward point. From this point onwards King Cross gained the upper-hand, mainly as a result of missed opportunities by Booth in the field, predominately to the detriment of Horsfall. Who, although picking up 3 wickets in a marathon 18 over spell, had a further 2 chances dropped off his bowling.

After the introduction of Sutcliffe with 10 overs remaining, the momentum of the game started to swing in Booth’s direction. Sutcliffe initially snared King Cross’s No.4 batsman, who had made 91, having him caught after a ‘juggling act’ by Finney on the wide mid-on boundary. This was followed by an equally incredulous catch by Lumb, taking the ball over his shoulder running towards the mid-wicket boundary. The catch was however, followed by what can only be described as a Primeval yelp, as Matthew bounded back towards his team mates, ‘high fiving’ the batsman who he had just dismissed in the process; to say that Matthew was excited is somewhat of an understatement. From this point onwards Booth closed out the King Cross innings with no further incident, restricting their opponents to 212 for 8.

The Booth innings started slowly, with wickets falling at regular intervals to leave them reeling at 40-3. The innings was then resurrected by Sutcliffe and Johnstone, the former looking promising before finding a leading edge and being caught by mid-on for 30 odd. This brought Horsfall and Johnstone together in the middle, for what turned out to be the definitive, match winning partnership. Both batsmen struck the ball cleanly and amassed their runs (78 not out and 76 not out respectively) steadily, chipping away at the target.

With 10 overs remaining Booth needed around 7 runs an over for victory, this equation then translated into 17 off the last 3 overs and after a couple of relatively tight overs 7 needed off the last over. With Horsfall facing, the first 2 balls of the over were dots, this was then followed by a pressure relieving 6 off the third ball, leaving one run required off three balls…easy, or so you would think. Unfortunately, Nigel was unable to lay a bat on the next 2 balls, with the bowler the stretching the definition of a wide; this left 1 run needed off the last ball. As with the two balls preceding it, Horsfall was unable to touch the final ball. However, knowing it was the last chance for victory, Johnstone set-off for the run anyway and a momentary fumble from the King Cross keeper allowed Johnstone to slide in, face first for the winning run.

King Cross v Booth

Booth won by 6 wkts King Cross 4pts, Booth 9pts

King Cross 212 for eight

A. Armitage run out

R. Uttley b Horsfall

C. Kielty c Johnstone b Thomas

O. Hussain c Finney b Sutcliffe

J. Maddock b Horsfall

A. Uttley c Collinge b Horsfall

I. Shabir c Lumb b Sutcliffe

C. Richmond b Sutcliffe

L. Smith not out