Match Report

After losing the toss on a warm and sunny day at White Post Road, we were initially disappointed at being asked to bowl first on what seemed to be a good batting track. Within the first over it was apparent that it was lifeless and hard to extract much life out of it, similar to young Archie Davis in the field!

Weymo bowled with good control early on, despite bowling to his pet hate; left handers, enticing lots of play and misses. Lutto struggled to find the right side of the wicket at times , but when he did his deliveries were unplayable – nipping one back through the gate to remove Bartlett and then hitting Wilkins on the boot for a rather adjacent LBW 1st ball (if we don’t count the wide).

The hosts never really looked in the game as 17 for 2, which slowly became 59 for 4. The ever trustworthy father/son duo of Ben and Neil Smith bowled well in tandem with great control picking up wickets at regular intervals. The opposition skipper Lambden (Justin) showed signs of intent to Neil delivered a beautifully subtle change of pace which lured him out of his ground; skipper Will Goodman finally remembering how to whip off the bails!

With first team debutant Jordon Davis, arguably the best brother in the family, bowling incredibly tightly at one end, it created the chances at the other. Senior Smith finishing with figures of 10-2-33-3; a brilliant spell abetted by the opposition’s decisions to continually attempt to sweep the ball.

Jordon finished his spell with impressive figures of 10-3-17-0, extremely unlucky to come away without a wicket. His figures were notably assisted by the wall of Tripod Cooper and The Wall (jnr) Goodman doubling up at the impenetrable short extra cover.

The tail of the innings was controlled well by some tight death bowling from Weymo (10-2-24-0) who also incredibly unfortunate not to pick up a wicket and, offies Smith Jnr (10-1-32-2) and Pykett (5-1-16-2) limited Banbury to 149-9 from their 50 overs.

The uncertainty of how competitive Banbury’s score would be must’ve evaded Coops as he left his mark on the new ball; gloriously punching it through cover off the back foot for a boundary. Archie fell early, just feeling for one outside off on the back foot and getting a little feather behind for just one. This brought the captain to the crease who set about building a superb platform with Coops.

They put on 99 for the 2nd wicket, which included 18 boundaries, reaching all parts of the ground; they picked off the bowling ball by ball, eating away at Banbury’s total with class, placement and finesse. With the reintroduction of opening bowler Wilkins, the only bowler to offer any kind of threat, Coops (30 from 65 deliveries) played around a straight one which brought Shrew to the crease. Without really getting going, a rather uncharacteristic chip to mid off from Shrew brought about drinks, meaning he was left a touch parched.

Ben Smith seemed to forget that the sweep wasn’t an overly viable shot on the day’s wicked, and perished quickly which brought Johnston to the crease to finish the job…

Skipper Goodman was able to rest on his bat at the non-strikers end as Johnston, with an elegant (and rather camp) flick, and crisp cover drive finished the job, seeing ‘The Foxes home by 6 wickets in just the 33rd over.

Twas a fine captains’ knock from Goodman, finishing on 85* from 94 deliveries; hopefully a sign of things to come. 25 points to build on as Tiddington take on Long Marson at home this week.