Long Itchington Cricket Club

After an afternoon of showers, the pitch dried and  Long Itchington won the toss and elected to bat. Harry Grant and Brennan batted superbly to put on 19 for the first pair with Harry hitting his first 4. James and Will continued the momentum especially against some excellent bowling. Ned and Harry Mitchell put on 19 for the next pair with some good shots. Jamie recovered after a couple of early outs including a big six and along with Peter who top scored with 12 resulted in a total of 259 which was helped by a couple of dropped catches. Leamington Khalsa bowlers had all performed very well and it looked like it would be a tight game against two evenly matched teams.

Harry G took a wicket with his 4^th ball and this being backed up with excellent tight bowling by Will it was still even after the first pair. Harry Mitchell and Brennan continued with excellent tight bowling with Harry M also taking a wicket. Skipper James Rawbone after being hit for a couple of 4’s took a good caught and bowled which left the last pair needing 23 off the last fours overs. Ned, who bowled with impressive pace, and Jamie shared the last overs and with two overs remaining 13 runs were required. This looked very gettable when a four came off the second ball of the 15^th over, however Ned then produced four excellent balls including a wicket so 14 needed off the last over with Leamington’s best batsman facing. With two mighty blows they needed 6 to win off the last ball but Jamie kept his nerve and bowled a dot ball so the lads ran out winners by 5 runs. An excellent game which could have gone either way and was turned by a couple of dropped catches but very noticeable improvement by all the players in all aspects of their game and Peter again producing another top performance behind the stumps.

Please meet at the ground no later than 12.45 – last one there and changed sells the raffle

1) Nick Brookes – Captain
2) Roger Eadon
3) Alex Jack
4) Martyn Rawbone
5) James Clark
6) Tom Perks
7) George Insall
8) Steve “Major” Rawbone
9) Steve Chapman
10) Andy Wood
11) Craig “Chalkie”White

Good luck lads, please stay unbeaten!

Please be at the pond for 12.15pm

1. G Foster
2. Z Aulakh
3. T Crosthwaite
4. C Elkerton
5. S Franks
6. A Jones
7. J Rogers (wkt)
8. N Sandy
9. A Smith
10. N Smith
11. S Wood

The lads travelled the short distance to Hunningham on a sunny and breezy Tuesday and played extremely well against a slightly older and very competent team. Henry lost the toss and Hunningham elected to bat. They raced to 17 after 2 overs before Harris(4-1-15-2) took two quick wickets, whilst Adam (4-1-11-2) kept it tight. After 11 overs the score was 69-4, then the late arriving Sam (sat-nav problems !!) took 3-19 off 3.4 overs and Matthew (3-0-17-3 + 1 dropped catch off his bowling) polished off the innings. Luke 20, Josh 19, Ollie 16 and extras 34 meant that LI needed 112 to win.
Joe (14) and Sam (16) started brightly taking the score to 26, before 4 wickets fell for 11 runs. Stephen (25 retired) and Tom (17 – his highest score ever for LI – well done Tom) took the score to 96. However despite some lusty hitting and kamikaze running from Jack and Harris, LI fell 4 runs short. Hunningham bowled with more control and extras totalled 25, 9 less than LI, which was ultimately the difference between the two teams.
The match was played in a good spirit with two teams fighting tooth and nail to win. Overall this was a very good performance against a team which will be contenders to win the league. Hopefully we will get revenge when we play them in 2 weeks time in the cup at home.
Special thanks to Ryan who came as 12th man (and fielded until Sam arrived) – his name will be 1st on the team sheet next time we play.

This week was the turn of Alvechurch III to visit the home of cricket, with the same track as last week to be played on home captain Graham Foster was hoping for another good batting wicket that maybe could deteriorate later on so he was very surprised that the Alvechurch captain won the toss and decided to put LICC in to bat.
Openers Foster and R Eadon got off to another good start with Foster being first out for 49 and the partnership being 135 further quick knocks from A Jones 22 and N Smith 20 lifted the total to 224 for 3 off the allotted 45 overs with Roger finishing on an excellent unbeaten 116 not out.
After tea supplied by Helen (fantastic chocolate cake) LICC were hoping for another good display in the field, home skipper needn’t had worried as opening bowlers C Elkerton and A Smith bowled a good line and length and picking up a wicket each for there efforts, Andrew again bowling an excellent spell for only 29 runs. Having tied Alvechurch down wickets were now needed, up stepped Craig Chalky White with an excellent spell of quick bowling to rip out the heart of the Alvechurch batting and with S Franks taking a couple of important wickets at the other end one being the dangerous Saunders who scored 42, it left 8 overs and one wicket needed, back came that man Chalky to claim the last man and take his 5th wicket. Alvechurch all out for 148 and another 20 points for LICC.
Another fine performance with everyone giving 100% and with great team spirit things are looking good, keep it up lads.