Barns Green 28Sep03

Kings 26th game of a highly successful season saw them travel to West Sussex to take on Barns Green CC, for what promised to be a tough fixture. Kings selected a strong side that saw them have batting strength in depth. Despite overnight rain the pitch was hard and dry and looked an ideal batting surface. Having won the toss it was the home team that decided to bat first.

Kings made a reasonable start without looking threatening. Both batsmen seemed reasonably at ease and used the pace of Pipe to work the ball around for easy singles. They had to be more watchful against Sones, who was extracting some indifferent bounce from the pitch. Kings seem to find it hard to find much rhythm, being thrown off by the left hand right hand opening pair. A few boundaries, through the slips and down the slope to the cover boundary soon had the score board moving along nicely for the home side. But slowly Kings started to get into the game and started to build some pressure, with Sones bowling particularly well. This pressure brought the first breakthrough for Kings as Tidey crashed the ball to Gordon Young in the covers and call his partner through for a run. However Young fielded the ball cleanly and threw quickly to Smith, who took the ball well to run Filby out by some distance.

This was just the spur Kings needed and they now upped the pressure with Sones still looking the most likely to get the next wicket. So it proved when he gave the Barns Green skipper no room and Gregory could only play the ball onto his stumps. Tighe then replaced Pipe, who had struggled to make much impression against the left handers, and in his second over Tighe produced the perfect full length ball to bowl Tidey. Gordon Young then took over from Sones and this put an immediate break on the scoring as the host's batsmen took stock against the spinner. Tighe got the next breakthrough when he lured Pasae to scoop his slower ball to Young.

It was Young who got in the act again when having frustrated Courquin the batsman tried to clip the Kings spinner over mid wicket but only dollied the ball to Pipe. The hard hitting Palne found the leg side boundary off Tighe, whilst Handley drove superbly for six. These two batsmen threatened to take the game away from Kings but Tighe and Young bowled superbly to keep the score in check and despite Handley once again hitting six Kings struck again when Tighe claimed his third wicket. This time he had Palne driving on the up through cover and Young took a good tumbling catch. Barnard kept Handley company long enough for the latter to score his 3rd six when Pipe took a well judged catch but fell over the boundary with the ball. Young struck the next blow when he took a return catch to dismiss Barnard before Pipe returned in place of Tighe.

The opening bowler's slightly slower pace paid immediate results when Handley played too early and Pipe made good ground to take an excellent catch off his own bowling. Pipe then picked up his 53rd wicket of the season when Parkes pulled straight to Evans at mid wicket. Shortly after Barns Green declared their score on 140-9.

With their strong line up Kings were confident of another victory but Barnes Green were not giving this one up. Kings top three went into the game chasing the title of leading run scorer, with Perry just 4 runs ahead of Evans. Barns Green got an early breakthrough when in the second over Perry miss judged a pull off Barnes and was bowled (2-1). Kings then made a spirited recovery as both Miller and Evans found their form with some sweetly timed boundaries. But just when it appeared the batsmen were gaining total control Parillion cut one back to bowl Miller (24-2).

This brought the experienced Miah in to join Evans in a fruitful partnership which once again seemed to be steering Kings to victory. With a mixture of well timed boundaries and some quick running, they saw off the opening bowlers and seemed to be in control against the change bowlers of Barnard and Gregory. They had added 64 but the reintroduction of the openers after just eight overs was to change the course of the game. With his second ball back Parkes gave no room for Evans to cut and the South African just got a nick behind. (88-3) The odds were still on Kings to win but when Parillion bowled Norman and Pipe, both without scoring Kings had slumped from 88-2 to 94-5.

Miah and Young then played sensibly in moving the score along at four an over but a big over was needed to give Kings some breathing room. Young decided to take the attack to Parkes but he only managed to sky the first ball to Filby at long on (111-6). There were now just six overs left and Kings still needed 30 to win. The remaining balls of the over proved to be a turning point as Tighe, well supported by Miah, took eight runs from three balls. Then in the next Miah struck two good boundaries to really relieve the pressure. However there was still a twist as Tighe was then bowled by Parillion with six still needed.

Smith saw out the remainder of the over to leave six needed from two overs. Miah, who had batted throughout with confidence and conviction, then struck a boundary of the second ball and took a single to bring the scores level and off the final ball of the over Smith drove crisply down the ground to win the game by 3 wickets.

This was a superb game, evenly balanced between to good sides and with plenty of twists and turns. Kings had bowled and fielded superbly to keep the score down to 140, with Tighe (3-48) Young (2-21), Pipe (2-38) and Sones (1-25) all bowling well. Whilst the batting was led by a vintage performance from Miah, who was well supported by the fluent Evans and the battling middle order of Young and Tighe. Miah was voted King of the day for his unbeaten innings of 58, but Young must deserve mention for his 2 wickets, 3 catches, a run out and 10 vital runs. It was a great game to finish a superb season for Kings, who in the process recorded their 18th victory of the season.