Pyestock11Jul04

After the drawn game earlier in the season between Kings and Pyestock the Hampshire side had stated on their website "Determination is more important than talent" This statement came back to haunt them when the two sides met at Spelthorne. In a totally one sided game Kings swept past their visitors to prove that the determined talented players of Kings still continue to be a force too much for Pyestock's determination to finally defeat Kings.

Even blessed with a superb batting track it was still a shock when Pyestock Captain Neil Butler, having won the toss, elected to bat first. Kings were happy with this decision as it played into the Kings captain's game plan perfectly as he would have asked the visitors to bat first anyway. The opening overs set the pattern of the innings as both Simon Pipe and Richard Sones bowled an immaculate line as they reeled off three successive maidens, which became four on the spin, with the bonus of a wicket when Sones bowled Sladen.

The dominance of the bowlers continued as two more maidens followed in the next four overs. However Kings game plan took a knock when Sones once again had to withdraw from the attack as he was further plagued by his recent injury. This left Kings with just three front line bowlers and meant a big burden was placed on Pipe to keep one end going. Pipe got his reward in his sixth over when Paul Heath drove to the perfectly placed Bygrave at mid off. The third wicket came in Bygrave's third over when he dragged Butler from his crease and a lightning piece of work by Steve Smith saw the batsman smartly stumped.

Wickets continued to tumble as Kings professionally went about working their way through the batting line up. Pipe demolished Grigg's stumps and Neil Butler drove right down the throat of Dave Perry at long-on to give Bygrave his second wicket. Pyestock were now in danger of a serious collapse with the score at 29-5. However Kings seemed to take their foot off the gas as Dan Heath started to play some flashing shots. With support from a non scoring Padwick, Heath soon had the scoreboard racing along with shots to all parts of the ground. In no time he had doubled the score giving it some respectability in the process.

However Gordon Young got his reward for some good bowling when he beat Short's defenses and trapped the veteran Pyestock player lbw. Heath then edged Pipe and Sones took a good catch at slip and Padwick was then trapped lbw by Pipe. Kings were hopeful of running through the remaining wickets now but some stubborn resistance from Holden kept them at bay. Pipe claimed his fifth wicket when he cleaned up Chris Heath for nought to leave Kings needing just one more wicket, but they were made to wait as Holden farmed the strike well to carve the ball around the park. Finally it took part time bowler Dave Miller to dismiss Holden when Sones, having just been placed at fly slip took the catch to finish the innings. Having dismissed Pyestock for just 103 it was no surprise that all the bowlers came out with highly respectable figures but none more so than Simon Pipe, who churned out a superb long spell of 20 overs with outstanding figures of 20-13-35-5.

With a strong batting line up Kings were more than confident of knocking off the runs and with the experienced opening pair of Miller and Perry at the crease they got off to a flying start. Miller drove the first ball to the boundary for four and followed up with a further six runs to put 10 on the board by the end of the first over. Perry followed in similar vain taking six from Short's first over. This set the pace for the next seven overs as Kings batsmen rattled off the runs, with 9 off the third, 6 off the fourth, 8 off the fifth, 4 off both the six and seventh whilst the 8th delivered 8 and the 9th brought a further 12 runs to take the score to 67 before the start of the tenth over. The scoring did not drop off as both batsmen continued to dominate the bowling with ease and not before the 13th over was a maiden over bowled.

When Pyestock finally got a breakthrough it came as a surprise. A short ball from Chris Heath saw Miller (39) flicking the ball behind square where Short took the catch (88-1). Pyestock then got a second wicket immediately afterwards when Evans was bowled by Paul Heath with a ball that kept a little low (89-2). However there was to be no scares for King as Vice Captain Dave Perry led the team to victory with his second game unbeaten knock in a row with a good 46.

Kings had rattled off the runs in just 17.4 overs. The performance with bat and ball had been emphatic and took Kings to their second win in a row and extended their unbeaten run over Pyestock to 12 matches dating back 8 years!