Leagonians 18Jun06

Kings traveled to Old Leagonians on a warm June day with not only 2 Miah?s, Dave and Joel but also Shannon Miah making her full debt. Without Skipper Rob Young, VC Steve Smith won toss and asked OL to bat in a 40 over match with 8 overs per bowler.

Pipe opened the bowling with Sones at the other end. Pipe soon fell into a great line and length having the batsmen playing and missing at regular intervals. At the other end Sones was struggling with his line, relieving the pressure on the batsmen.

Not surprisingly it was Pipe who made the first breakthrough with Tighe taking the catch safely. The next wicket fell to a superb run out from Joel Miah, fielding at short fine leg gathering the ball and throwing down the stumps at the bowlers end with the batsman nowhere in sight. A double bowling change with Tighe and Norman replacing Pipe and Sones signaled the start of a middle order collapse by OL. Tighe striking first, with Shannon Miah taking the catch at mid on. Norman now got into the act, fist clean bowling the no 3 (27) before trapping the no 5 in front for 14. The next wicket fell to another run out with Sones calmly fielding the ball and throwing to keeper Smith to take the bails off. Norman was now bowling a great line and length got his third wicket bowling the no 7. His forth wicket shortly followed when taking a return catch off his bowling to get rid of the no 8 for a duck, finishing his spell with 4 ? 23 off his 8 overs. With 8 wickets down Shannon Miah had replaced Tighe and bowled a steady 4 overs only conceding 10 runs. Pipe came back to replace Shannon with Evans replacing Norman at the other end. Pipe was next to strike picking up his second wicket trapping no 9 lbw, with Evans picking up the final wicket, clean bowling the no 10. OL innings finishing on 98 in 35.1 overs.

Kings reply got off to a steady start with openers Dave Miller and Joel Miah. With Miah content the take the 1?s and 2?s, Miller started to find the boundary in his usual style. The score had reach 30 off the first 5 overs when Miller missed the straight one and was bowled for 23 (30-1). Miah and MacKenzie took the score to 41 before Miah over balanced and was stumped for 7 (41-2). This brought Evans to the crease fresh from his 55* the previous week. However the pair could only manage a stand of 8 before MacKenzie skied one straight into the hands of the fielder for 8 (49-3). Pipe was the next batsman and along with Evans took the score to 72 before being caught plumb LBW fro 8 (72-4). Tighe joined Evans at the crease in no mood to hang about and the pair saw us home with Evans 22* and Tighe a quick fire 23*, finishing the innings in 19.2 overs for the loss of 4 wickets.

A comfortable victory in the end, with the bowlers setting it up with a fine display. Normans 4 for 23 being the highlight, but also Pipe and Tighe with great tight spells.