29 July 2007 St Lukes Sunday v Burgh Heath
– Away
St Lukes:
A team with 3 debutantes, including Henry Packer aged only 11, travelled to our old friends, Burgh Heath, for a Sunday friendly match. After heavy overnight rain the pitch was very soft and batting looked difficult. Sure enough, Burgh Heath won the toss and elected to bowl.
The pitch proved difficult to score quickly and the outfield was slow. Against accurate bowling St Lukes made slow headway and lost a couple of early wickets. A third wicket stand of 34 between Richard Bent and Gothum gave hope of a decent total but Gothum's impatience resulted in his being stumped having scored 13. Meanwhile, Richard showed extreme patience while building a score but with overs and partners running out he had to take chances and was well caught in the deep for 51 hard earned runs. The tail never looked like wagging but a desparate final partnership of 13 between Nick Radiven (8 not out) and Robin (7) got the score into 3 figures in the final (40th) over and St Lukes were all out for 105. Not a lot.
After a good Burgh Heath tea St Lukes started hopefully with two early wickets courtesy of Ven. Karl also picked up a wicket before the middle order settled down on a drying wicket which was now favouring the batsmen. By the time Robin made another breakthrough too many runs had been scored, due to inconsistent bowling and some poor fielding. There should have been two easy run outs and there were some comical overthrows. Backing up wasn't the problem, it was stopping the ball when backing up that proved difficult. However, it was pleasing to see that Henry performed well in the field when called upon. John Sparkes (one of two Sutton Busmen on duty for St Lukes) took the fifth and final wicket with his first ball but he could not repeat that success and Burgh Heath reached their total with 17 overs to spare.
An enjoyable run out but a disappointing performance all round with Richard's innings and Henry's debut the only highlights.
Man of the Match - Richard Bent.