Played at The Vineyard
Sunday saw The Vineyard draped in glorious sunshine and believe it or not there was no east wind coming in from the Irish Sea.
Civil Service won the toss and elected to bat. Lorcan Woodhouse took the gloves behind the stumps and quickly accounted for two wickets off the bowling of Sam Smyth and Luke Clinton. Next wicket, Nilesh Joshi (32) fell to the bowling of James Fleming. This brought Dhiraj Shetty to the crease and he stayed until the very last over when he was bowled by Sam Smyth. Dhiraj put on a fine 70 off 105 balls with one six and three fours. Best bowling for The Hills were Sam Smyth with 3 for 35, Luke Clinton with 2 for 39, a wicket each for Barry Grimes, James Fleming, Will Archer and Athar Farooqi. Credit should be given to Lorcan Woodhouse for his fine wicket keeping display in taking three catches and not conceding a single bye in 42 overs, not bad for a bowler! The Target to win was 175 which looked eminently possible given that this team had chased down 290 the previous week but we had no knowledge of their bowling attack.
John Derham (31) and Athar Farooqi (13) opened the batting for The Hills getting to 48 before the first wicket fell in the 13th over. Another wicket fell in the next and this brought Gavin Morgan and Ashad Farooqi (12) to the crease. The bowling was good and runs were hard to come by but this pair put on a patient 52 run partnership that proved critical to the outcome of the game. Gavin Morgan went on to make an undefeated 82 off 86 balls including four 4’s and five 6’s. Despite this excellent performance the game went down to the last over needing a single. Morgan blocked the first ball but despatched a mighty six down the ground to seal the win. Other contributors with the bat included Sam Smyth (12) and James Fleming (9*).
