A cold overcast evening in Tynemouth saw the mighty Mallards take on KSOB at Priors Park. 16 overs were to be played in this affair as the KSOB opted to take to the crease first.
Black and Roe opened the batting for the KSOB who got off to a slow start with some sublime bowling from Cleaver. Cleaver claimed the first wicket of the game that saw Black walking back to the dressing room. A great reply after being hit for a 6. The outfield at Prior’s Park was considerably slow and bumpy therefore Roe did exceptionally well to hit 3 boundaries, scoring a respectable 18 runs before being caught at long off by Dhillon off an Edge ball, the bowler claiming his first wicket for the Mallards.
A comedy of errors from both sides led to an attempted run out by Dhillon who could only manage hitting the completely unaware Edge who was in the process of scrambling to his feet. The remaining KSOB batsman could not get going at all, with the highest scorer achieving only 6 runs. Some incredible bowling from Latif and Holland saw a couple of the old boys quacking back to the club house. Star bowlers Latif (2-5 off 3 overs) and S Holland (2-4 off 2 overs) bowled out the middle few batters before Brown hit the last nail in the coffin with some precise balling to finish the 16th over with the KSOB’s scoring a mere 53-7. An impressive performance with the ball and in the field by Mallards. Fourth umpire Collingwood was unused on this occasion. Will we see him raise the finger to a shout of lbw next time?
Openers T Holland and Butcher entered the fray. Black got his man early on when Butcher was stumped on 5 but Holland found the middle of the bat on a number of occasions sending KSOB fielders deep into the undergrowth.
Ramsey, making his Mallards debut, clearly missed the memo sent out by his fellow debutants the week before and found his first run almost immediately before being bowled by Black the very next ball.
Dhillon came in and found some quick runs as Mallards neared the target set by KSOB before Holland retired on an excellent 30.
This brought Standring out to the crease, eager to get more runs on his Mallards tally. Dhillon was having nothing of the sort and finished the run chase the very same over. This came as a surprise to Standring who was asking the umpire for a middle stump guard as everyone else walked off the field. First red ink of the season, a well-deserved not out performance and a Mallards victory by eight wickets.