On Tuesday this week, the U11Bs visited Bromley Common in the North Kent Junior League Pairs Division 1. Despite the closure of just about every road leading to the ground in the hour preceding the meet time, we managed to get a full team out on time. Thanks to the lovely groundsman at BCCC, we managed to get a whole game in around the rain showers and very murky skies.

We lost the toss and batted first, and though much was made of the opposition's two Bromley Bulldogs pace bowlers, they failed to take a wicket between them. Instead, Beckenham played brilliantly against them (in particular Laura and Mika, who had to face an over of each bowler), and forgot how to bat against the other bowlers! The score after each pair was as follows - Jack and Albert S: 207/2, Daniel and Toby: 224/3, Laura and Mika: 242/5, Hugo and Krishan-Raj: 260/6, Jamie and Sebi: 277/8. The top scorers were Daniel (11 not out), Jack (9 minus 3), Jamie (5 not out). The only other not out batsman was Krishan-Raj, who scored 3.

The batting was let down by some very poor running between the wickets and almost non-existent backing up at the non-strikers end. The exception to this was Jamie and Sebi, who as the last wicket pair ran 7 2s, more than the rest of the team put together. On such a large ground, the boundary count was always going to be low, and our need to run the first run quickly was particularly shown up here. Another problem with our batting was our desire to hit the ball in the air. On a pitch offering uneven bounce, where 4/5 of the opposition bowling was not very good, we should have been playing with a straight vertical bat, not a horizontal bat. Finally, we chased wides, and lost runs trying to smash wides to Australia and back. On several occasions we walked out of the crease to play a wide ball, and hit it straight to a fielder, or let it hit our pads, scoring no runs. A wide is 2 runs. If you aren't going to hit it for 4, take the 2 runs for the wide and move on to the next ball! This cost us at least 10 runs.

278 was therefore the target for Bromley Common, but this was at least 30 short of where it should have been.

After 4 overs, BC were 207/2. Jack, Laura, Krishan-Raj and Albert had bowled a good over each and the omens were good. Then Druh came to the crease and hit 23, including three beautiful straight drives. The bowling by the same four was good, but we were taught how to run between the wickets - this pair ran five 3s (compared with none for Beckenham), taking the score on to 245/2.

The third and fourth pairs batted with little trouble, with wides and no balls featuring heavily, except Daniel, who bowled beautifully, and finished with two wickets for just two runs, with no extras whatsoever.

After 16 overs, BC had reached 267/5, and needed 11 to win. Then came the excitement! 8 runs came from the 17th - 275/5, Jamie then took a wicket in the 18th and conceded only 1, 270/6. Both sides knew a win was in sight. 7 came off the 19th, 277/6 leaving the scores level going in to the final over of the match. 2 singles from the first two balls of the over left Jamie needing a wicket. He'd done it before - bowling the batsman with the last ball of last season to win the match for Beckenham C, but this time, the ball was just about kept out, and the victory went to Bromley Common.

Overall, this was a game that Beckenham should have won by a country mile. I think the sloping pitch affected some people's bowling - we gave away a massive 52 runs in no balls and wides, but aside from that there were lots of lessons to learn ahead of a tricky looking away fixture at Sidcup on Saturday 22nd June, who beat us in our first game of the season with very accurate bowling. Looking at our games and other results we know about, everybody seems to be beating everyone else, and therefore the title is there for the taking by the team that plays well in the last half of the season. Let's try and make that Beckenham.

Player of the match goes to Daniel, for his wonderful spell of bowling and hitting 11 not out, as well as two superb sliding stops in the field. His best performance this season. Laura ran him close with her fearless batting and tight bowling.

More focus needed for Sidcup!

Beckenham Cricket Club

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