By 4th Team Captain Stephen Oliver

In the best traditions of 4th team cricket, we took to a damp Fulking and pulled back the covers with 4 changes in personnel from the previous week and now had 3 aged 61+ and 3 aged under 16. The captain’s art of field setting was gaining further complexity.

Toss won (for the 7th consecutive week) Nomads opened up with 2 of the new team mates. Hugo (colt) bowled a very tidy spell and removed an opener. Adam (non-colt) gave us a 9 over spell and a wicket to keep the batsman under check. Faisal pressed the economy button and was miserly going for 12 off his 6 overs and nabbing a couple of wickets. Around the halfway mark Streat were 79 for 4.

The introduction of Jonah meant he could now toy with the opposition. First ball was “whoops, sorry” but then dot followed by dot, by dot. After 4 overs he had 1 wicket and 8 runs against his name. Then “economy” Jones replaced himself with “terminator” Jones. His next 10 balls (over 1.4 overs) produced 5 wickets – a remarkable effort proving the case for bowling straight at the stumps. Even the stumps were feeling punch drunk at the end and struggling to stay upright. Streat were all out for 116.

In response Nomads started cautiously amid some tight bowling. Streat had their own bowlers on economy mode, wickets fell and more wickets fell – 55 for 3 became 78 for 6 and then 93 for 9. The scoreboard was inching forwards (overs being the number changing most frequently) it started to rain.

Jonah was unable to repeat heroics with bat – but his economy rate remained remarkable with 1 run off 21 balls…The rain continued to fall, the gloom became gloomier and the scoreboard was stubborn. Das told the captain he had a “sick note” for being unable to hold a bat and entered the fray last man standing. But then bowling restrictions meant Streat had to change their bowlers. Adam Rowland hit 4,6,6 and we had won. Das had faced 8 balls for a solid 0 and Adam ended on 32*.
Maybe “thriller” is putting it too strongly, but it was certainly very absorbing and the scorer announced she was doing “kids stuff” for the next 2 weeks as it would be less stressful. A great win for the team, onwards we amble…