Bagshot 3's V Windsor 4'2

Another hot and sunny day saw Windsor win the toss and decide to bat. With Chuckles away, Mighty White and Mini G opened up and the thinking was keep the run rate down and the wickets would come...... especially as it was on the same strip as the Reading game last week which we stumbled a bit to less that 130.
Windsor just set about the bowling. Mighty White finally got a wicket to get their young opener out caught behind by keeper Matthew Funnell, but after that whoever bowled seemed to get blasted all over the park. We spent as long searching for the ball in the bushes as playing. Mind you their skipper spent longer arguing with their scorer being adamant he had already reached 50 when he was only on 44....
We also seemed to drop every catch on offer which we would have gratefully received last week (none of the chances went to our new fielding guru "Coach Carey"though). Nick "Monty" Lynch slowed the pace down and bowled well, as did young James White but all to no avail. Matt Alexander was a tad rusty, young Will Gardiner and Keith Wheeler unfortunately got into the attack when they were in full flow. Only the returning Mike White managed to nurdle out a couple more wickets with Jack R getting a good catch in the deep to finally force Windsor into an early declaration of 260 after just under 38 overs.
A Mandal feast was laid out, with normal sarnies, vegan ones not for me), cakes, fruit, crisps and a rather special fruit salad with greek yoghurt which would have fed all Glastonbury festival goers all weekend... I heard Morrisons had run out of fruit and water melon (brought on with the drinks intervals which was a new team favourite)! Having said that we used to drink port at half time when playing rugby... so a reasonable second favourite in my eyes...

Because this total was nearly 100 runs more than any total previously scored at the Memorial Park this and any other season, there was a little trepidation that the ball would get lower and lower and we might struggle to get anywhere near this total. Matthew Funnell and young James White went out to face the old ball and two young spinners. With instructions to settle in and have a good look at the ball, Matthew Funnell was clearly still at his prom evening, as he danced down the wicket and got stumped for nought, and not quite the start we were looking for!
I waddled in my stomach still sloshing some fruit salad around, and James and I put on 24 before James got an outside edge and was caught at slip. Mini Growler (Jack) came out to join his dad, and we slowly (in true Growler fashion) aimed many balls through mid wicket to the short boundary and punish their fielders into looking for the ball as long as we did in the trees and hedges. Mini G was in imperious mood as he took on all the bowlers and the scoreboard just kept going up and up as we went for batting points. There seemed to be no deterioration in the wicket at all and soon we just worked our way towards the total. Jack finished the game with a fine pull for 4 to reach his 102 not out, to overtake the target to make 264-2 off just 34 overs.
His first hundred ever. His first senior hundred, off just 78 balls. A unbeaten stand of 238 with his very proud dad. His mum had popped up to stay for 20 minutes when he came in to bat, but stayed for the duration. Big 25 points and unbeaten in 4 games.

MOM. Me! No, obviously not. Mini Growler, who is maturing into a great not so little cricketer.

My thanks to Barrie for Umpiring the whole game, Adam Carey for scoring in the absence of Chuckles, Mark Gardiner and his daughter for donning the marigolds (Mark) in washing and clearing up, Santosh for the excellent tea, and the team for helping to make it all happen.

Want revenge over Ascot next week and they are just above us in the table...

Growler