Kings CC V Imber Court

06-Aug-06

Kings welcomed new opponents in the shape of Imber Court to Kempton for a match with some added spice as two players amongst the visitors ranks had played for Kings this season; Paul Bygrave and James Melligan. The home side's strength was significantly weakened as they were without three of the usual top four batsmen, these were the in form Dave Perry, other opener Dave Miller and South African Richard Evans. However Kings were able to field all of their recognised bowlers including leading wicket takers Simon Pipe and Paul Norman. Having won the toss Kings chose to bat first.

The innings got off to a confident start with Joel Miah driving an early boundary off Melson. However after a wayward start Millesti produced a peach of a ball to catch the edge of the Miah's bat and a good catch at slip resulted in the only recognised member of Kings regular top four being dismissed (12-1). However Kings seemed to be recovering from this poor start as stand-in opener Nick Tighe and James Reedman started to pick up runs. Reedman particularly was scoring well off his legs as Millesti struggled with his line to the left hander. Melson was a continual threat as he slanted the ball across the right handers, and it was he who struck next when he found the faintest of edges from Tighe and keeper Cassidy took the catch (27-2). Melson should have had further wickets as he again found the edge, first Reedman and then Pipe but on both occasions Cassidy spilled the chance. Kings needed a partnership to develop between Reedman and Pipe if they were to post a reasonable score and this seemed to be developing until the introduction of Melligan into the attack in place of Millesti.

His first ball saw a full in swinging delivery that beat the defensive push from Reedman (50-3). Worse was to follow for Kings as Melligan got a leading edge from Gordon Young and the ball looped tamely to mid wicket (50-4). Kings were in deep trouble now of not posting a competitive score and much relied on Pipe. Melson was replaced by Mooney, who produced a tight spell, but Melligan was unable to follow his explosive double wicket maiden start and Pipe laid into some loose deliveries as 17 runs were conceded off the next two Melligan overs and resulted in his removal from the attack. Yet Kings suffered another blow when Norman mistimed a drive off Mooney and was caught at mid-off (83-5). There then followed the only real partnership of the innings as Pipe, playing his natural aggressive game, along with Wright playing a more defensive supporting role started building the score. Pipe, with some good fortune thrown in, began to find the boundary with some finely struck boundaries including six over the trees at mid wicket, and he deservedly reached his first fifty, his first for two years.

However, the return to the attack of Melligan was about to swing the game back in favour of the visitors. Pipe was bowled for 72 as the batsman attempted to heave a pull to mid wicket (133-6). Then Bygrave bowled a wide delivery to Wright who chased the ball into the keeper's gloves (134-7) before Melligan struck again when he bowled Samuel Tighe (139-8). Owen Mears then took three boundaries off one Bygrave over and in the process took the score past the 150 mark. But with two overs left skipper Young fell to his opposite number Jackson (154-9) and there was to be no further addition to the score as Melligan claimed his fifth wicket when Mears chopped on to bring the innings to the close. Kings had posted 154 all out, at least 15-20 runs below par for a competitive score.

The Imber innings saw Kings make the good start they were looking for, as in the first over Bygrave edged his first ball to give a low catch to keeper Smith off Miah. Then in the next over Imber Skipper Jackson was undone by some movement from Pipe to also fall without scoring. Till then A Mooney had looked particularly strong on anything bowled with width and had scored with some ease off Pipe, however when he played a ball onto his foot it ballooned up to point where Reedman took a simple catch to give Pipe his second wicket.

Pipe was to strike again when he accounted for Deans as Kings seemed to be in total control. Kings then made what may have been a fatal error by continuing to bowl out their two opening bowlers who had reduced the visitors to 42-4 off 16 overs. But with a good depth of bowling Kings were still confident that their remaining bowlers could do the job of defending a relatively small target. Both Nick Tighe and Paul Norman picked up wickets with some ease as Imber's middle order slumped to 60-6. Melligan and Mellesti then started to open their shoulders against Samuel Tighe. However when Melligan drove Norman strongly on the up through mid off Nick Tighe, with consummate ease, supremely plucked the ball from the air with one hand to take an outstanding catch. Then Gordon Young was introduced to the attack, he lulled Mellesti to pull to mid-wicket where Miah dived forward to take a good catch and with eight wickets down the odds now seemed stacked against Imber of chasing their target.

However M.Mooney and Melson had other ideas and the left handed Mooney was particularly impressive in despatching Mears through the off side. As the margin to victory started to reduce Kings fielding standards started to slip and runs were gifted with miss fields and overthrows. Mears swung the game back Kings way again when he bowled Melson with three overs to go and tight overs were now the order of the day. But Young's penultimate over was to prove expensive (4 over throws not helping the cause) and although Mears bowled a good 39th over it left Imber needing just 2 runs from the final over with 1 wicket in hand. The first ball of the final over saw Cassidy edge Young past Wright at slip for the winning runs and a rewarding and satisfying victory for Imber - and a second successive home defeat for Kings.