Drayton v Gressenhall 31st August 2008

Gressenhall 50 Drayton 54-4 Drayton's Sunday side finally saw a return to action, and despite some colourful weather forecasts were hopeful of completing a game! This was duly managed, and indeed a comfortable victory achieved against an understrength, but game, Gressenhall side. Warren Kedge lost the toss and was invited to field on a hot, muggy afternoon - not ideal fielding conditions by any means, so for Drayton's fielders the relatively short time spent in the middle was a blessed relief.

Gressenhall's openers started off watchfully against Matt Bourne and Ryan Pointer but survived the opening six overs with little difficulty. The game turned when Bourne was forced off the field, and was replaced by James Reeve. He removed Saunders, somewhat fortuitously, in his opening over - but then proceeded to run his way through the batting line up - taking a further wicket in his third over, two in his fourth, and then one apiece in his sixth, seventh and eighth overs, to finish with the outstanding figures of 7.4-2-13-7. Two of the wickets came from return catches, whilst a third return catch was dropped (to be fair it was travelling like a shell) - but even then Reeve had the speed of thought to drop it straight onto the stumps at the bowlers end, where the batsman was fortunate to survive a strong run out appeal.

It wasn't just the James Reeve show - Mike Bown on his last ever appearance at headquarters took 2-9 and then took over the keepers gloves from Phil Jolly Jason Trett, and snaffled a catch off Reeve's bowling. Ryan Pointer again bowled well and deserved better reward than one wicket.

Chasing 51 to win, Drayton's reply got off to the worst possible start when Tony Gregory top edged a full toss into his face and retired to hospital to have his wounds tended to (the NHS often take a lot of criticism for the length of time people have to wait at A&E to be seen, but it was confirmed that by the time Tony arrived at hospital on Sunday afternoon, Nigel Armitage had already been seen!). Mike Bown looked in fine touch, and will be sorely missed next season when he is back in New Zealand, but fell victim to another of the weekend's unusual dismissals - caught at mid on after hitting a fierce drive, which in itself was not unusual - other than the fact that the fielder had his eyes shut at the time. With the score having reached no more than 20, captain Kedge also fell - top edging a sweep to square leg. Jason Trett tried to get the game over quickly, smashing one straight six over the Drayton High Road but fell trying to repeat the feat, and young Tom Radford also fell in similar manner. It was left to the calm heads of Tim Woods and Ryan Pointer to see Drayton home to their victory within 13 overs.

The Sunday league season is now concluded, but we are hoping to secure one or two friendlies in September - watch this space for more details.