North Midd on Top Against Twickenham at the Stow

After driving through an EDL march and a swathe of riot police, the 4s arrived at the Stow ready to kick off their quest for their 8th promotion in 8 years.

With the standard lost of the toss, Twix skipper decided to bat and were immediately under pressure from tight bowling from Boots (4/30 off 18) and Pistol (1/21 off 12). Slow batting and good bowling left Twix 50/3 off 25 overs and needing to up the run rate. With Bootsy refused to come off after drinks, he collected a few more scalps before Gaurav came on at his end to clean bowl the Twix skipper and two of their lower order to finish with 3/30 off 9.3 overs. Also, an excellent, mature bowling effort by Alex Harris (1/12 off 5) kept the late order swingers at bay, claiming a wicket, and easily could have picked up one or two more. The Twix batting dragged out to 55 overs for a total of 142.

A small total with a hot batting line up and plenty of overs. Should be easy, shouldn’t it?? Well it didn’t really turn out that way. Early doors, Gaurav was out to a hooping yorker for a duck, then Marc played around a straight one and also fell for a duck. Things were still ok, right? Then Richard fell to what can only be called a schoolboy error. A big appeal for caught behind was turned down by the umpire, but while Richard stood out of his crease, looking at the umpire for his final verdict, the alert keeper rushed up and whipped off the bails and he was out stumped. Very soon after that Carl chipped a simple catch to mid off for 4 and the Midd looked in trouble at 4/35.

From there though Joey James and Pistol set about resurrecting the innings, and with a combination belligerence and canniness, they took the score to 102 before Pistol skied a catch to their dangerous and crafty full-toss bowler. From there, man-of-the-match Joey took control and quickly knocked off the runs, with the help of Jimmy, who fell to a questionable LBW decision, and Arjun, still hobbling after turning his ankle in the field.

A great introduction to the season, after so many false starts last year. Lets keep it going for the 8 in 8!