Big big win for us. 3rd (us) plays 4th with all the top teams to all play each other, basically the winner of this takes a strong 3rd place and has it in their own hands to take promotion if they keep winning (both are still to play 2nd) and we are all within a win of each other.
As expected they added a first teamer (they were mid table 3 divs above), i had lost a class player to a 1’s drop out on friday and had at least 6 other potential first choice players unavailable including my regular keeper, my reserve keeper, my vice captain a first change bowler and 2/3 of my regular top 6 bats.... No spinner either.. also gone to fill in 1’s 🤦♂️
Once their 1’s pre Madonna departed for 40ish to a v smart leg side snaffle by the stand in keeper we were in control of the game... that was untill their no7 arrived at the crease and proceeded to smash (its exactly the right word) the ball all over. He hit 71no in very short order, it was not pretty but boy ohh boy was it effective... he targeted the short boundary and cleared that, plus the road on quite a few occasions. 201/9 off 44, declaring to deny us the additional bowling point....
Its at this point i put the batting order together and realised how light we looked, i’m Usually apologising to people about how low they are relative to their ability at this standard but not today... my usual 7/8 was in at 5.
I need not worry, our stalwart opening nurddler and his 15 year old opening partner put on a partnership of 188 of truly wonderful batting, all under some pretty nasty and consistent “banter” lead by their super star 1’s player who preceded to go for 47 runs off his 7.5 overs. I have to say ...that team are a really good bunch of lads usually and if anything he upset their flow today - it was simply a case of lack of unity created by the attitude of one individual.
We did loose 2 wickets that included the opener for 119, but the young lad carried his bat for a 51no and i even got to smash the “pro” for 4 facing my second delivery with the scores tied.... i have never been so satisfied to see that ball disappear to the boundary.
We knocked them off 2 down in just over 30 overs.... they could not believe it and to be fair neither could we.
With 3 games to play (i can’t believe some of you have already finished) we are 18 points behind 2nd with the fixtures for us looking like bottom, 1st.... 2nd. So the last game could be a massive one if it all pans out as we expect.... our opposition play 2nd next week so as you can imagine there were plenty of requests to do us a favour at the end of the game!!
What a sat!