North Midd 5th XI v North London 5th XI

The Fantastic Fives were looking forward to the start of the new season and wanted to impress against local rivals North London. Captain fantastic Richie unfortunately lost the toss, and the inevitable happened…put into bat on a flat track at Peter May!
Openers Timmy and Shield started cautiously against an attack that had at least 100 years in total between the opening bowlers! This was a good sign for the Fantastics who where hoping to cash in on some easy pickings. How wrong the openers were as Peter May was as slow a track as the quick singles that Timmy and Shield were not running……..
The Shield finally succumbed to frustration by toe ending a slow slider which spun back from another county to rest gently against the off stump and as if in slow motion remove the off stump bail. The Midd had lost its first wicket and cometh the hour cometh the legend that is Mark Glazebrook! An amazing innings of fine cover drives, square cuts, and straight driving that would leave Julian Clary with eyes wide open, saw the Glazer score an amazing 109 not out. He was well supported by AllBran, Dunky, Si, Bazza, Captain Morgan, Richie, Uzzie and Joey as the Fantastics reached a good score of 240-9 from 46 overs. This was despite the skipper Richie wanting to declare after 45 overs with Glazer on 95 not out!
A tea that included 134 packets of walkers crisps was not up to the usual standard and left the Fantastics feeling a bit cheesed and onioned off!
North London never really wanted to chase such a high score and seemed happy with going for the single point right from the outset despite Dunky trying a few pre-planned tempters from the off. Uzzie was the man again however and looked very dangerous on a flat wicket! The North London bowlers never got him away and were bamboozled by his variation of pace and amazing cutters which would have put any flymo to shame.
Notable catches from Si in close, and Richie diving was backed up by accurate stuff from Captain Morgan’s “pasop vir jou” mixture of seam and off spin. A nice performance as well on debut from young Joey “Banger” who bowled with style and grace which saw him take a deserved first senior league wicket. He finished on 1 for 12 off his 6 overs. Uzzie’s 9mm saw him take 3 for 37 from 17.
4 points to start with as North London crawled to 148 for 7 off their 46 overs (3.217 strike rate).
Better things to come for the Fantastics who are looking forward to more improvement as the weeks go by, and the ultimate aim of promotion this year!