Our first Sunday match of the season brought us to the beautiful Meon valley and the ever-affable West Meon CC, on a perfect warm and sunny afternoon.
Always an interesting track, we won the toss and chose to field in a traditional Sunday rules game.
We were delighted to welcome debutant OC into the Racqueteers fold; a player who we’ve all been delighted to get to know over the winter practice sessions.
In tandem with the ever-reliable F Chris, we started with great control limiting the home side’s openers to careful & steady progress; the spongy wicket proved difficult to read (for both sides) with the green top taking seam movement throughout the day.
Our bowling continued to impress with both Adam (Benefit), The President and the extremely economical Head of Trout never allowing the West Meon batsmen to break free.
Benefit’s extra pace eventually trapped their opener lbw and with the introduction of the ever-youthful Sepia, another home wicket was claimed as the latter took a fantastic and acrobatic c & b on the eve of his 62nd birthday; it’ll be some take to better that as the catch of the season! Our other leg-armer, Leo, also bowled with great intelligence and accuracy though without much luck.
The Skip shuffled the bowling pack in the final overs as we keep the run rate from getting away from us.
West Meon’s captain, Stuart, who unfortunately broke his foot against a fiery Rishi last year, went on to carry his bat, as the home side posted 167 for us to chase at tea.
After an excellent, tasty and well-earned tea which included our inaugural draw of the Racqueteers Half Century Club – won by a pleasantly surprised (though entirely oblivious to the draw!) Charlie T – we set about our reply in the evening sunshine.
The Skip & Leo started with composed confidence against a very useful attack until Leo (11) got an unplayable shooter, that brought The President to the wicket, who promptly hit a nonchalant six over backward square leg.
Sadly though his good-looking stroke play came to an end when he fell for 8, and when the Skip (18) was run out by a direct hit from the boundary the innings appeared to stutter.
However, the ever-positive OC (23) and our talisman Sepia (12) steadied the ship and took the score along with calm assurance.
As the innings progressed we lost more wickets though and, with the overs ticking down, focussed on playing for an honourable draw…
And so it was that G, aka ‘The Wall’ and Farmer Chris saw us home with determination and great technique in the face of extraordinarily attacking fields; at one point eight close catches huddled round the bat!
They hung on admirably as we made it to a most exciting and well-deserved draw; Racqueteers 98 for 7 after 37 overs thus remaining unbeaten in 2024.
The Racqueteers Cricket Club 