Fletching Cricket Club

This riveting contest ended with a scrambled Rye single off the last ball, leaving the scores tied but the result as a draw.

Rye had earlier won the toss and invited Fletching to bat. Dan Saunders 20 and Mark Horscroft 19 got Fletching off to a slow but steady start.  It was Martin Blincow with 3-43 and Mark Cook 1-31 who made the intial inroads as Fletching reached 97-4 off 30 overs. Fletching then responded through Grant Horscroft 70 and Matt Lucas 28 who shared a hard hitting partnership of 70 runs. The introduction of Gary Willis 2-50 and Felix Nelson 2-39 removed both of them and chipped away at the Fletching lower order. Fletching however managed a respectable 192-8.

Rye began cautiously after losing Fran Briley early on, but then began to accelerate as James Hamilton 46 and Mark Cook 65 shared a 78 run partnership but both fell in similar circumstances…Mark Horscroft swooping to claim two great catches on the boundary.

With Rye needing 100 runs for victory off 15 overs, Fletching’s Dan Saunders took centre stage,  removing the middle order with 5-34. The game came down to requiring 12 off the last two overs with 3 wickets in hand. Off the penultimate over squeezed out 8 runs. 4 off the last over, but Sam Newman dismissed Gary Osborn 19 and then dismissed Nelson. With two for victory off two balls Rye ran a leg bye but a dead ball was called, no run. A single was scrambled off the last ball, leaving the scores tied but the result as a draw.

Instead of the usual Thursday evening coaching session on 12th June Sussex County CC will be providing a “Roadshow”. There will be two Sussex professionals and five coaches. There will be games, competitions and photo opportunities.

The Under 11s have got off to a cracking start in the league this year with results as follows:

vs Ardingly    06.05.08 Fletching won by 210 runs (is this a record in Barrington rules?)

vs Ansty A     13.05.08 Fletching won by 133 runs

vs Ansty B      20.05.08 Fletching won by 44 runs

vs Newick      03.06.08 Fletching won by 77 runs

Our next game is vs Haywards Heath next Tuesday 10.06 at 6pm at Fletching - come along and see these talented lads in action.

DP

Ten men of Fletching were hopelessly outclassed on a pudding of a pitch at Rotherfield. Missing four players from last week and with the remaining 30-odd players in the squad unavailable, competing away to Rotherfield was always going to be tricky.

Can’t remember who won the toss, it didn’t really matter. Fletching batted first. We stared very solidly but became rather bogged down…pun very much intended. Even so, with Clive and Chris Hartup at the wicket at 94-2, Fletching still looked capable of posting a vaguely competitive total. Paul Kemp looked very comfortable at the crease after an absence from cricket for a couple of millennia and was unluckily out to a stunning catch at square leg. The tail pretty much folded after this, the exception being a calypso-style cameo from Matt Lee…smashing the ball on the up through point and extra cover like he was batting on a flat track in Barbados. Tea was exceptional, as it always is at Rotherfield. They also had this behind the bar:

142 might have been defendable, or at least interesting, if Fletching had had their usual bowling options available and a full side…and if we could get John Baldock out early. He did drive airily just short of Matt Lee at deep point off Ali’s bowling…but he was on sixty-odd by then! Chris Hartup, carrying a dozen or so injuries, claimed the one wicket to fall, lbw, but Rotherfield reached their target with plenty of overs to spare.