ACC 4s beat Old Wimbledonians

The weather was dodgy and the pitch was inevitably damp. But some great team work before the match, led by Alistair Wildsmith (who works as groundsman) meant that we got the cover back on before a downpour. With Jack pushing the super-squidgy machine around, Brandon and Aaron driving off to the local pet shop to buy sawdust, and Steve supervising how to fold up the cover properly, it was a good team effort. It meant we were as prepared as possible and we only lost 2 overs per side.

We won the toss and to Old Wimbledonians surprise the skipper opted to bat. Stevie Hasler and Jon Kuhrt opened and started off slowly against some accurate bowling. The pitch was tricky but they gradually increased the run rate and put on 62 for the first wicket. Hasler (19) again did a good job before unselfishly hitting out to bring in Ryan Godfrey in his comeback match. Ryan immediately looked good, striking the ball crisply and the run rate moved along well. The skipper was out LBW (again) for 44 against a ball which took hours to get to him and Ryan continued well to 41. After Esa and Brandon were out, Wakil came in and hit a huge six to the longest part of the boundary before being LBW. With Jack and Alistair batting the remaining few overs, we ended on 155 which we were confident of defending.

However, the first few overs of their innings did not go well for us. We knew that OW had strong batting - they had won the first 2 league matches with two different batsmen both getting centuries already this season. And our first few overs were sloppy - far too many short balls which were hit powerfully off the back foot. OW raced away to 27 for 0 off 5.5 overs.

Their dramatic collapse was actually triggered by Wakil's fielding. Another short ball was cut away and Wakil ran hard chasing it and created uncertainty in the batsmans' mind. They already knew he had a great throw in from the deep and their hesitation handed us a fortunate break-through. From then on the whole match changed. The very next ball of the new over, bowled by Jack, saw a great bit of keeping by Ryan who quickly saw the other opener out of his crease after playing his shot and smartly stumped him.

Jack Southwell stormed in, pitched the ball up and ran through the team. He got 3 wickets in the 7th over. Their number 3 went bowled for a duck and their number 4 also went without scoring to a diving catch at mid-on by the skipper. Southwell went on to clean bowl 2 more of their batsmen. Wakil came on and bowled superbly to get 2-10 and young colt Danny Kuhrt fielded smartly to run out their dangerous number 5. Aaron Dias came on to snap up the final wicket and after just 14 overs, the OW were all-out for 54.

Jack ended with the incredible figures of 7 overs, 5 wickets for 11 runs. This included a spell of 5 for 3. I said he reminded me of Ian 'Beefy' Botham in 1981, freed from the shackles of captaincy and storming in to bundle out the oppo, but only Steve Hasler understood the reference.

It was a dramatic win and a great feeling to get another 20 points. A big thanks to Gavin Mander for umpiring. If we continue to bat our overs and pitch it up when bowling then we will win more matches.