Hopefully all of you can feel a special togetherness and club spirit.   ‘I can feel it!’ says Cobo

Threes Avoid T20 Banana Skin and we review Three Major League Wins.  It’s Been an Excellent Weekend!

Wickets Flying

It’s been yet another brilliant weekend around the SCMG where Nomads have been taking a bucket full of wickets and then cashing in with important and season shaping wins. There has been a whole host of top-class individual performances.  Your Club Captain Nav told me in April ‘we have recruited well in the winter and the club could win a lot of silverware this summer’ Well, as we go through Mid-Season we have put ourselves in contention.  Sit back, take a load off as we try to navigate our way through it all.  I hope no one will object to our Threes grabbing the headline after a brilliant T20 win in Mid Sussex.

Young Will Hutchinson Receives T20 attention with 3 for 17 off 4 Overs as Threes Progress. Sussex T20 Trophy. 25/6/23

Our Threes travelled to mid Sussex and the pretty village setting of Hurstpierpoint for their 3^rd round T20 Trophy. Under blue skies and with perfect cricket temps T20 Captain Jamie Patrick won the toss and decided to have a bowl.  He got it spot on as the hosts were instantly in trouble, the influential Josh Dolan caught off the bowling of Yo by keeper Chris Baker.  Waqaar Hussain then made a stunning catch as young Will Hutchinson took the first of his three wickets.  With the Nomads rampant progression into the next round was virtually assured as the hosts slumped to 51 for 6.  Oscar Herman and Oliver Harris did present some late resistance but there was no panic amongst the ranks chasing down 101.  As the dust settled it emerged that Will finished on 4 overs three for 17.  Pretty special for any T20 match!

Chris Baker, Saturday’s Noman MOM, was at it again with a comfortable inns of 34 up top.  He had done his job perfectly.  There were one or two uncomfortable moments for the Nomads, but a positive result was rubber stamped when T20 Skipper Jamie Patrick created the champagne moment.  A powerful back foot cut to the boundary for four. A beauty!  Not to be outdone Dad Tom H hit two fine boundaries to carry the team over the line.  He and Fas finishing not out.

Patrick told the waiting media (full interview on whatsapp)  ‘I am thinking about that Hove final a lot but know there are two more games to be played. We bowled and fielded really well, we need to harness that and take it into the next league match’

Bowman said ‘Thanks to Hurstpierpoint for hosting.  A powerful victory in Mid Sussex. Our Threes can now ‘park’ that T20 excitement for a while and get on with their ‘hard-nosed’ league campaign. Will bowled wicket to wicket and deserves my Man of the Match award.’  And Will if you are reading you might want to have a quick peek at the bowling stats for this competition on play cricket.

Obviously, we shall follow the Threes again when they play in the Quarter Final.

Josh Clarkson Grabs 5 as Baalaaj Gets Runs Under his Belt.  One’s Win Again!  Sussex Prem SCMG  24/6/23

Our Ones are in imperious mode at this time and picked up a commanding SCMG win against Mayfield. Regular readers will know that I am very taken with our Overseas and to demonstrate that he took a memorable 5 for. Josh, if you are reading, I know there is a lot more to come!  Chasing 140 odd our top order got the job done so not many got a bat yesterday. You middle order had better get used to that!

Nav takes up the story.

Lost the toss and we were put in the field which was happy days as if I won the toss I was going to bowl!
The wicket supported our seamers and we all charged in and started getting the rewards. To bowl them out for 146 was a tremendous effort. Special mention to Josh who picked up his first Nomads 5fa. He bowled with amazing energy and pace down the hill and was another level to the mayfield batters.
With the run chase Nathan set the tone with some classy boundaries and was unfortunate to knick off to first slip. Jaedyn and Baalaaj however were clinical in finishing the job. They both played their natural games and mowed down the total convincingly. Baalaaj ended on 63* which should give him a whole heap of confidence.
An emphatic 30points!!

 

Zayn Unplayable at the Polegrove as Twos Win Again.  Div 3

Four ducks and a one is all you need to know why the Twos game only lasted 35 overs in Bexhill.  Zayn was in cracking form taking six for 18 as Bexhill, a sleeping giant, slumped to 50 all out.  Charlie Davies, 15 not out was the mainstay of a straightforward chase.

Ollie Gatting sends word from East Sussex

The seconds travelled to Bexhill, looking to continue our willing run.  We lost the toss on a very dry wicket and were asked to field.  Zayn and Ravi opened up the bowling for us.  As with last week, the two opening bowlers bowled tight channels and giving no loose balls for Bexhill to put away.  Another strong fielding display backed up the blowers.  Wickets started to fall, with Zayn bowling particularly well and getting the ball to seam and cut.  having both finished their 9 over spells, Zayne finished with the outstanding figures of 6-18 and Ravi 2-17.   Kash quickly picked up the final two wickets, with Bexhill being bowled out of 50.

Although we only had a small target, we knew the wicket will make scoring runs a challenge.  The chase didn’t get off to the best start by losing an early wicket. We managed to reach 18-1, looking well set before we had a collapse, reducing us to 25-5 and still a long way from the target.  Witnessing most of these wickets fall was Charlie Davies, who was batting for his first time for the 2nds.  Charlie batted very well and maturely,  putting the bad balls away when they were bowled.  Soon after we lost Kash, still requiring 18 with 4 wickets left.  This brought the MOM Zayn to the wicket.  The two of them saw us over the line, winning by 4 wickets.

 

4s Dominate St Andrews at the SCMG as Burney Grabs 2^nd Ton   Div 9

After a couple of seasons in the doldrums our 4s under Stephen Oliver are starting to light up division 9. Prompted by Mike’s second 2023 league ton and Mal (with injured wrist) 4 for our team thrashed St Andrews to pick up a massive 30 points. The guys certainly liked being on home soil.

Stephen reports (I hope you can see his broad smile through his words!)

 

PNCC win by 214 runs…
Wow – I would never have imagined that I would be writing about a victory of 200+ runs, but a superb team performance saw us achieve a comprehensive victory. From stand-out individual performances, the team secured the win in comprehensive style.
This had all the potential to be a tricky game for us. The opposition were just below us in the league and our team was not entirely balanced (on paper we could bat, but could we bowl ?) and had last minute changes as Mal, nursing an injured wrist and therefore supposedly resting, stepped into the team with less than an hour to go (she must have been stalking the team WhatsApp looking for her chance 😊 ).
Opposition won the toss and decided that they wanted to chase a total. So Nomads set about giving them a total. We set about calmly taking the runs from the loose balls, Aly and Tate giving us a calm start. Then Mike got his chance. At 10 overs Nomads were 35 -1, at 20 overs 100 – 1, at 30 overs 186-2 and then 276 at tea. Truth is we slowed down over the last 4 overs once the skipper entered the fray!
Mike scored 131 through simple positive batting, not slogging. Tate and Gary both supported and built their own scores (Tate another 50 this season). Doing the simple things well is so important in sport and the batters led the way.
During tea, Mal iced her wrist to numbness and took control of the ball. Although by her standards it was a little uncontrolled (“I have no idea what my wrist is going to do”) an opening 8 overs session yielded 20 runs and 4 wickets. William (“Bongo”) Dale an u13 junior was the other opening bowler and demonstrated good skills to deceive the opening batter to gain his first ever senior wicket.
Gary then grabbed the ball, took 3 wickets, David and Danny demonstrated miserly bowling and finally Luke G got the batter to hit the ball in the air to the skipper just after drinks. The opposition had scored just 28 from the bat with a single boundary. Our extras count (20 wides; 4 no balls) shows we have yet to gain consistency and control of the ball.

Match moments. The sound of broken tiles as Mike thundered a ball into the groundsman shed (sorry Ian and Biz).  Gary and Tate having a father/son moment (bowled Tate, caught Tate). Mal realising that her wicket taking was better than Nav’s (and he had 20 overs!). 13 year old Bongo giving his Dad bowling advice.

 

Extras Watch  (League Only)

1^st Team week 1 19 week 2 18 week 3 26 week 4 30 week 5 14 week 6 7! Week 7 16

2^nd Team week 1  23 week 2 18 week 3  15  week 4 32 week 5 19 week 6  25 week 7 18

3^rd Team  week 1  39 week 2 35 week 3  19  week 4 47!! week 5 32 week 6 26 week 7 62!!

4^th Team week 1   12 week 2  26 week 3  34 week 4 24  week 5 25 week 6  29 week 7 34

Guys, we are still making it difficult for our selves by giving away far too many Extras. It really cost our Third team this week.  It’s been the worst week of the season giving 130. Please could we get the figures going the other way!

 

In summing up

Chairman deserves a special mention.

We are virtually at the half way stage of the 2023 season.  I know right pretty crazy ahhh!??  League tables are starting to take reasonable shape after 8 or 9 games. There was a wonderful moment around 3pm on Saturday when both the 1^st and 2^nd team were top of their respective leagues.

But away from wins, performances, stats and tables I have to say that our club is starting to build something very special indeed and hopefully all of you can feel a special togetherness and club spirit at this time. The grounds at Fulking are looking their imperious best and our members are looking particularly wonderful in their smart club colours. There seems to an immense and palpable sense of pride about being involved around Preston Nomads CC.  I believe that our Chairman Paul Hird takes a lot of credit for that. He has worked tirelessly for 2 years getting the correct personal in the right places and letting them just get on with it.  I believe there is whole lot more to come from PNCC!

Right, that’s enough of the slush, lets get back on the training ground this week and make sure we prepare well for the next big adventure. Massive games are just around the corner!

Cobo  26/6/2023