A difficult start to a difficult season, putting the visitors in to bat on a damp one. Tunbridge Wells found it difficult to score but did run the singles well early on and also the placement of the ball to areas where they knew a comfortable single could be found. With Rowey removing the opener early on it wasn’t a bad start, with the visitors only having 30 off the first 10 overs. AA and Bear bowled well again in tandem with AA picking up 3 wickets including the dangerous Mark Alexander and Bear being unlucky not picking up any, due to his mid on being asleep! With further tight bowling the scoring did stop for a period and it was getting desperate for the visitors as wickets tumbled and the overs were ticking away. However a few did get some runs in the end with Rowey getting a 2 fer bowling extremely well (come you stupid weather harden up these pitches) and Smudger also getting 2 wickets with some average bowling. Tunbridge Wells finished up on 150, thanks to some donut bowling, letting the ball slip through his fingers on the last ball for them to scamper through, losing 7 wickets.

In reply, well it didn’t really happen, the loss of Pards early on seemed to set the standard for the rest. A catalogue of poor shot selections on our home pitch did for us, with only a 15-year-old boy on his debut, George that is, showing how it could be done with a fine 32. Rowey finishing on 24 not out at the end and Hobo 6 not out, playing out the last 10 overs also showed how it could have been done, may be not perfect but with a bit of grit and determination, we finished on an under par 117 for 8.

Disappointing, very much so. After last season it’s hard to take. Its only the first game, we are a very talented team, so lets put this behind us and now go forward, another tough battle awaits next week away at Lordswood who also appear to have under achieved.