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Great Waltham Cricket Club

Scorecard

Hornchurch Ath 1st XI v Great Waltham Cricket Club 1st XI on Sat 27 Aug 2016 at 1 p.m.
Great Waltham Cricket Club Lost By 117 runs.

Match report After the Lord Mayor's show... comes the dust-cart.

A devastating 131 from David Walters formed the backbone of a formidable 287/9 as Hornchurch Athletic CC condemned us to our heaviest defeat of the season, extinguishing any feint hopes of a Top 3 finish in the process.

A sluggish and disorganised start to the match pretty much set the tone for the rest of the game. Despite the aggressive intent from Gill (23) and Rafferty (16), JT removed both to get us off to a solid start. Ryan held a sharp chance to get rid of the latter who offered a bizarre and embarrassing justification* for not 'walking'... thankfully his teammate had no qualms about giving him out. Poor form.

Bastin (31) laboured throughout - particularly to J-Fitz - and his dogged innings probably took the best part of 23-24 overs to compile. His eventual dismissal triggered the damaging partnership that took the game away from us. Walters and Wade (33) put on an absolute shedload of runs in double-quick time thanks to some excellent running between the wickets coupled with a multitude of boundaries. 300+ was really on the cards when O-Fitz sent down a rank long-hop that Wade could only pull to the grateful (?) hands of Nindi.

Walters continued to dominate the scoring with a succession of inventive and outrageous strokes that brought up a compelling century. Another useful partnership with Marks (27) pushed the total beyond 250 as the 'Waltham Catching Yips' suddenly kicked in with Walters (131) dropped 2-3 times before Tucks finally held a steepler at long-on.

Chappy (twice) and a wonderful bit of ground-fielding by DJ engineered a hat-trick of run-outs and we went very close to picking up all 5 bonus points with a flurry of late wickets as Hornchurch pressed for 300.

In keeping with the delayed start, a leisurely tea was taken at 4:20pm and our reply didn't get going until after 5pm(!).

It was the sort of day (and the sort of score) where we needed the added power of a Swan, a Harris, a Clout or a G Bloom to boost our batting order. Alas it happened to be 'one of those weeks' where our line-up lacked that game-changing element in the ranks. That's not to take anything away from The Romford Express (Nindi) who - on one of his old stamping grounds - hit a couple of huge 6's in an entertaining 53 as we collapsed from a promising 70-odd for one to a disastrous 89/6 and a calamitous 117/9 as Crane (5-33) tore through our middle order.

With the game/result in the bag, Hornchurch had plenty of time/overs to secure the final bowling bonus point. Or so they thought. Lewis 'Lazarus' Tucks and JT had other ideas.

As Hornchurch rotated their bowling attack in search of the final wicket, Lewis - showing no ill-effects from his now infamous Phantom Achilles - 'tucked' in to the buffet on offer and smashed a boundary-laden 52 that ensured 2 more bonus points.

The 10th wicket partnership of 53 (JT 0*) wiped a few of the grins from the Hornchurch faces and it's testament to the stubborn resistance of both Lewis and James that it took the return of opening bowler Marks (1-24) to finally end the entertainment. Hornchurch were getting a bit jittery...

At the end of the day, despite the last-wicket heroics, we were comprehensively beaten by the better team. With little at stake, our all-round performance was somewhat lack-lustre...

Let's end the season with a decent performance against Tillingham (on the cusp of promotion) and try to finish in the top half of the table with a win.

It's been a mixed season... which Waltham side will turn up on Saturday?

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*Quote: "You've got to see what you can get away with sometimes..."

Hornchurch Ath 1st XI Batting

Player name		Runs
extras TOTAL :	4nb 4w 1b 4lb for 9 wickets	13 287 (45.0 overs)
Gill	ct Richardson b Taylor	23
Bastin	ct Duggan b O Fitzwater	31
Rafferty	ct Brown b Taylor	16
Walters	ct Tucker b O Fitzwater	131
Wade	ct Dhanjal b O Fitzwater	33
Kapur	run out Chapman/Brown	6
Marks	run out Chapman	27
Fox	run out Bloom/Brown	1
Hammond	ct Bloom b J Fitzwater	1
Heneghan	Not Out	0
Crane	Not Out	0