Outstanding performances see 2s continue winning ways

The 2XI were at home to Sandwich Town on Saturday after a rather long and victorious away trip to Whitstable the week before. The only change in the side was the reintroduction of Greg Bain fresh from his five year walkabout, in for the injured Jordan, who was missed greatly due to his usual “Jordan of the Day” comments. Also missing from the 2XI squad was our scorer, Lesley who was ill, get well soon Lesley!

Finally we won a toss and elected to bat on what seemed to be a difficult wicket to get yourself in on. We got off to a slow but steady start with Aiden looking to capitalise on anything short from the openers. Sadly we lost Shaun for four and shortly after Aiden for 14, which left us 31-2 needing a slight rebuild from Murtz and Belly. These two continued to accumulate whilst punishing the bad ball, with Belly blasting two sixes back over the frustrated bowlers’ head. However he was unfortunate not to covert this into a 50 falling short on 45, which left us 101-3. Much to the delight of the crowd Greg Bain strolled to the crease at number five to join Murtz who was then on 31. After a nervous few balls at Manor Way, both for the spectators and for Greg, he was finally off the mark. Murtz and Greg showed how to construct an innings, knocking the ball around for ones and twos guiding us towards a good total. After breaking two bats and acquiring one of Shaun’s to go about his business, Murtz reached 50. Soon after Greg joined him in the fifty club, accelerating his innings nicely and dispatching the bowlers to all parts of the ground. Much to the disappointment of his fan club Greg went for one shot too many off of the slow off-spinner and departed for a well-made 69 off of 54 balls, which was incredible since he took 11 balls to get off of the mark! Dan and Sam both came and went for 6 and 15 respectively and we finished on a score of 258-6 with Murtz unbeaten on 89- jug avoidance if you ask me!

After a typically outstanding tea from the Bexley tea ladies, we took to the field with the main aim on putting the pressure on the opposition and taking early wickets. Sandwich got off to a slow start due to the phenomenal work from the openers, Hilly and Fraser, who made the batsmen’s lives incredibly difficult. Hilly struck early removing the number two batsmen for three, with a sharp catch at short extra-cover from Belly. Fraser and Hilly continued the good work, with Fraser (the MVP) snicking off the number three for zero and Hilly bowling the number four for a duck. Fraser finished his first spell, rewarded with figures of 62-8-1 and Hilly finished his spell with figures of 7-3-12-2, outstanding by itself, but even more impressive considering his first three balls of his spell went for nine. Anish “Ronnie the Rock” Patel strangled the batsmen, only conceding 23 runs off of his ten and claiming a ridiculously sharp caught and bowled, leaving the opposition on 71-5 at the time of his wicket. Shaun Evans replaced Sam Barton from the Railway End and immediately attacked the batsmen, working in tandem with Anish. Anish was eventually replaced by Aiden who whipped out his surprising good leggies. Shaun took his first scalp of the day, putting the opener out of his misery and struck soon after removing the number six, which proved to foreshadow his success with the ball. Murtz chipped in with a wicket replacing Griggsy from the Lake End and Shaun repeatedly took wickets for fun.
Fraser eventually caught the number ten at mid-off, off of the bowling of Shaun, who claimed five in total leaving him with exceptional figures of 9.1-3-20-5.

Overall a good performance from the 2XI, first set up by Murtz, Belly and Greg and well finished off by all of the bowlers but in particular; Hilly, Fraser and Shaun. On to Folkestone away next week.

Alex Shanks