4s beat Beddington

In the absence of the skipper who had to work in the morning, Martin Stone lost the toss and Addiscombe were put into bat by Beddington.

Stevie Hasler and new opener Vinay ‘Vin Diesel’ Malotra opened the batting. Vinay got out after hitting a four and Hasnain, on his post-exam return, did the same. But Martin again showed why he is the ‘corner-Stone’ (geddit?) of our batting and settled in with the Rock that is Hasler and they put on a good partnership pushing the score over 50. Steve went for 10 but Martin carried on hitting the bad balls on his way to an excellent 45.

Having raced back to Addington from the East End with TFL having a particularly good day, the Captain came in at 5, just at the point when the weaker bowlers were coming on. He and Martin pushed the scoring along until Martin called for a quick single to mid-off and twanged a quad muscle in the process. This led to Alistair being called in as a runner and some fairly comedy moments with Jon, Martin and Alistair all calling at different points.

Martin, clearly hampered by the pulled muscle edged to slip looking to smash a six over mid-off. This brought in the 4s 2017 player of the year, Beefy Southwell, on a brief return to the 4s due to needing to play a home match. After endlessly going on about his new bat with lower-middle (designed for the keep-low track of Addington), he hit his first ball for 4 sweetly. He and Jon bashed it around for a few overs, taking the score to 214 off just 38 overs.

At this point, the skipper decided (with his big faith in our bowlers) that we had enough runs and declared with Beefy 24 not out and the skipper 83 not out. Addington’s pitch has improved dramatically since a month ago (thanks Graham!) but we were confident they would not get 200 and did not want too many to induce any premature blocking for the draw.

And so it proved. After another excellent Sue Maguire tea, Aaryan bowled another tight opening spell despite being smashed for a straight 6 in his second over. Shortly after starting it was clear that Martin was not fit to keep so Jon replaced him behind the stumps and Martin retired to the boundary to watch. Aaryan got a fortunate wicket with a leg-side snick caught low by the new keeper and then had a dubious leg before given. But he bowled well and ended with 3 wickets for 16 off 6 overs.

Bevan looked dangerous but was not quite at his best. He was replaced by Beefy who bowled exactly the same as he did all last year – pitching it up and swinging it away and got 3-9 off 4 overs. Alistair, Aaron and Nikhil also bowled with mixed fortunes, before Bevan came back on and mopped up the last 2 wickets. Everyone fielded well with good alertness and we got the fruits of this with a good run out prompted by sharp fielding.

It was a resounding victory played in a good spirit and adds to the reputation of ‘Fortress Addington’. Next week we face Trinity Mid-Whits - and we are back at the Fortress.