Picture the scene - a wonderful ground, 22 athletes, a playing surface giving encouragement
to the bowlers but playing true for the batsmen, excellent fielding, a solid score and a
masterful run chase.......anyway enough about India v Sri Lanka at the Oval, this was
Saddos v the Uphill Gardeners - a fixture with history, niggle, this was grassroots cricket,
rain not stopping play and sausages, a large plate of sausages.

After tactically losing the toss, skipper Jones opted for an all spin attack to open the bowling,
to try and catch the Gardening openers off guard. The new ball pairing of Lucas and Pointer
were up against a couple of decent bats and runs flowed, without loss. Rupert and Gary
were then brought on to stem the flow of runs, but with little effect, Rupert did pick up the
wicket of their opener though - one of the very few times a catch was held...

Luckily for the SADs the two best batting Gardeners quickly retired after reaching the
requisite 25 and the pairing of Winfield and Jones were able to turn the screw, limiting the
batsmen to singles and extras - Winfield finishing with excellent figures of 1-7 in his 2 overs.

Next up came arguably the highlight of the innings. The ball was thrown to Knee (and, after
he picked it up) he bowled a couple of excellent overs. The first over, balls five and six
producing a catch and clean bowling their number seven. The hat trick ball in his next over
was right on the button, with the batsman ballooning the ball up, but the ball falling
excruciating between two fielders, when a call from either would surely have resulting in the
first SADs hat trick* since Curtis in the 2016 indoor season. Busted and Williams really kept
the scoring down and suddenly the SADS had some control back.

More solid, tight bowling by Mark and Shaun, with both picking up a wicket a piece kept the
Gardeniers down to 132, when a score approaching 200 was very possible. Especially after
they were in the nineties after 10 overs. So a very gettable 133 on a track which although
seemed to be offering variable bounce, a few of the boundaries were short enough to offer
up plenty of maximums.

The innings started well, with Lucas and Roberts opening and a four off the first ball. Things
then went downhill rapidly with Lucas, Winfield and Neal all being removed quicker than a
Tory party manifesto pledge. The slow pace of the wicket undoing them as they either
played too soon or miss-judging the speed of the delivery. Busted and Nick then went in
quick succession after a couple of lusty blows, and it was clear that a lot was going to be
asked of Mark, who was going well. He pushed on well to retire on 25 - rarely looking in
trouble, while playing some great shots for four on a slow outfield.

Once Mark had gone though, it was going to be a case of playing for for SAD pride and
getting somewhere near the target for a final push. Rich and Michael did well to rotate the
strike - however, clearly the Gardeners had kept their better bowlers til the death and runs
were hard to come by. Michael finally succumbed to a decent catch in the deep. Sean and
Rupert while trying to give Rich the strike, saw the required run rate increase rapidly and
were unable to push on to get near the target.

Overall a disappointing result, but with hindsight, the best team won. The takeaways for the
team were:

Batting and Bowling needs to be more consistent - too many bad balls and rash shots

Catching - where do we start? Yep - Fines - plenty of fines. You drop one: you drink one

(*May or may not have been a hat trick).