12th July
Holiday season came to Mill Road with only four first team regulars available for the visit of promotion rivals Boxted. Despite some encouraging displays from Bernie and Ben making their first team debut we suffered a heavy defeat with only ten men on the field.
Another lost toss and again asked to bat first, wides were the top scorer in the early overs as Simon and Vinnie adjusted to the pitch. Vinnie fell first to a catch behind, Dan was well caught at midwicket and Alex C on his club debut was possibly unlucky to be caught off his pads. Simon (19) was then bowled in somewhat strange circumstances. Ray (12) and Ben (10) started a mini-fight back with Robbie chipping in with 13 and Phil 4 leaving us struggling at 97-8 as the last pair of Bernie (21*) and Tony (22*) came together. The two tailenders showed what could be done with some straighforward batting as they put together an unbeaten stand of 47 using up our full allocation of 45 overs.
Needing early wickets to have any chance our reply suffered a major set back when Danny strained his hamstring after bowling 3 excellent overs, conceding just 3 runs, but Ray stepped in to finish Dan's third over and promptly took a wicket with his first ball! After that it was hard going as repeatedly mistimed shots in the air fell agonisingly our of reach, the gaps with only 10 men being all that much larger. Ben took the only other wicket to fall with a bit of a long hop but then bowled a superb final over, Bernie also bowled many good balls with just one ball in each over damaging his figures. Both young players did themselves credit.
Ultimately just one of those bad days where too many regulars were missing.
Cavaliers 144-8 vs Boxted 145-2
Lost by 8 wickets
PDQ Cars NECL Division 2
