Penn Street vs Beaconsfield

Penn Street CC lost to Beaconsfield CC by 12 runs

Beaconsfield CC 220-7 (A Mitchell 50, Richard O'Hagan 3-33)

Penn Street CC 208-5 (David Adams 104, Sam Martin 43*)

A valiant hundred from David Adams was not sufficient to save Penn Street from defeat against opponents determined to gain revenge for the heavy defeat that Penn Street inflicted upon them last season.

Batting first, Beaconsfield got off to a good start and comfortably saw off the opening attack of David and the lesser spotted Adam Tattan. The breakthrough was achieved in somewhat bizarre circumstances when captain Sam Martin elected to use the club secretary as his first change bowler. Opener Bishop promptly dispatched the ball to the long on boundary but was then warned by his batting partner to be cautious. He ignored this advice the next ball, swung mightily across the line and lost his middle stump.

Beaconsfield then retrenched and the score continue to rise without the loss of wickets. At this point another inspired piece of captaincy saw Goody introduced to the attack and. His first contribution was to catch the other opener off the bowling of Asif Teja but his second was to dispose of the rapid scoring number four batsmen to an excellent running one-handed catch by Alex Woest.

Beaconsfield’s number three batsmen had been slowly accumulating runs and had just got to his 50 before he was outdone by an even less straight than usual delivery from the club secretary. In his next over, Richard also had the Beaconsfield number six caught behind despite being the only person on the field not to actually appeal for the catch.

There was then just time for David to execute a run out with a bullet throw and for Alex to pick up his first wicket for the club courtesy of a catch behind as Beaconsfield closed on 220.

Unfortunately, the spark of captaincy genius that assisted Sam so well during the Beaconsfield innings deserted him when it came to choosing his batting line-up, as he inexplicably decided that the club secretary was also the best person to be opening the innings with Steve Smith. The pair of them found runs hard to come by against a disciplined Beaconsfield bowling attack, but it should also be said that they gave plenty of chances that the visitors simply did not take full. Eventually, Richard was undone by a straight one and the ball afterwards Simon Fox was given out leg before to leave the hosts in some difficulty.

Fortunately for Penn Street this brought David to the crease and it was quickly clear that he had too much power for the youthful bowlers. He was ably partnered first by Steve, who departed leg before wicket for a well-made 25 and then by Sam, who finished not out on 43.

David’s hundred came off just over 70 balls and featured 14 fours and two sixes. Unfortunately, though, Penn Street was just behind the run rate and David fell to a catch on the long off boundary with the rate having crept above 10 and over. Sam and PeterJon Williams did their very best to claw that back, the latter being valiantly run out in the final over as Penn Street came up 12 runs short.