A glorious day for the young and.......not so young!!

A rare occurrence happened down at St Mary’s, something that rivals the eclipse in frequency - I won the toss!! Even though the sun was scorching hot we decided to have a bowl.

The opening pair of Dave Sallis and Con Berry set the tone for the day, very tight bowling into the 7th over with the breakthrough coming as Sinoy took a good catch off Dave’s bowling followed by Con joining in the very next over clean bowling the new batsman.

This was very much the theme of the afternoon- Sid and Sinoy were first change and they certainly maintained the standards that had been set, very good bowling backed up by some very tidy fielding, at 20 overs Builth had only managed 59 runs and already 3 down as Sid had taken his first of 3 victims for the day. With Chris Frith coming in as our 5th demon bowler the pressure just didn’t ease, 2 run outs ensued as the batsmen tried to push the run rate up towards something that could be defended but there was no let up. Sinoy pushed through to complete his 10 overs in one spell and was really unlucky to not claim a wicket but returned very tidy figures only conceding 44 runs. Dave finished his spell 9-1-39-1 very respectable but Sid and Con were the pick with figures of 10-1-36-3 and 10-4-29-4 respectively. A very good afternoon all round in the field and we would be chasing 190 - a below par score you would think at St Mary’s.

A fantastic tea was provided by the team, well done everyone.

So the chase began with a definite spring in our step, Phil & Chris lead the way, Phil in his usual style played a couple of lusty blows only to find the fielders, there was a single boundary before a smart catch saw Phil trudging back to the sidelines, Ed Pritchard was next to the crease and the pair set about reducing the deficit, both looking at ease and quickly passed the 50 mark and the the 50 partnership before Ed was caught at gully.

Dave Webb was next to enter, unfortunately even though he looks comfortable at the crease it was not to be his day with the bat even though he had he best seat in the house to witness Chris pass his 50.

The skipper was next in sporting a lovely black eye by now following a little incident in the field earlier - the runs were ticking over nicely before the leg spinner had me trapped LBW fair and square. In came Ian Lunt who had played through a nasty injury to ensure we had 11 players on the field, he ably partnered Chris who was looking as solid as a rock closing in on the target and his maiden century.......which would be crossed first........Fortunately and rightly so Chris achieved the milestone with a couple of runs to spare, well deserved. Well done Chris.

Shortly after the celebration the winning runs actually came from a wide delivery so the result was ours - a win against the League leaders and what a win.

A fantastic performance from everyone today - Well done.