Penn Street vs Old Manorians

Penn Street 232-4 (M. Bannister 115*, P. Jupp 92) beat Old Manorians 198-10 (R. Raven 3-53) by 26 runs

Well, the stage was set for Cherriotts’ run of bad luck to end. A crack squad of cricketers had assembled, on what could be described as a perfect day for cricket. The opposition (well most of them) had arrived early and were keen to get proceedings underway. The skippers walked out to the middle for the toss to the sound of the Old Manorians team chanting “tails never fails”. They hadn’t banked on the old double headed coin trick, so when heads appeared The Street had no hesitation in batting on a beautifully prepared batting track.

The ever reliable Juppy was joined by Matt Bannister to open the innings with both players getting off to a fine start, putting on 50 odd in the first 10 overs. The Minors, after a bowling change, tightened things up considerably for the next 10 but the street still hadn’t lost a wicket and the foundation for a large score had been set. Banny brought his 50 up with a few lusty blows back over the bowlers head and when Juppy passed 50 both players changed gear and runs were flowing like the Amazon during rainy season. We didn’t see much of the Minors for the next half an hour as they seemed to be in the woods trying to find the ball most of the time! The breakthrough eventually came when Juppy was caught on 92. The score was 168/1 with 8 overs remaining so the stage was set for the rest of us to support Banny and try and keep the scoreboard ticking. We eventually finished on 233/4 with Banny scoring a magnificent 115 not out.

After tea, the ball was given to Reece to do his stuff from the wood end. No loosener needed as he up-rooted the batsman’s off stump first ball of the innings! The Street were flying and when he repeated the ball in the next over to the same effect the Street were on fire! Although we were taking early wickets runs were coming at an alarming rate so when they reached 100 off just 12 overs something had to give. Golden ball Banny was given the cherry and immediately slowed things up and with Damo at the other end bowling at a ferocious pace we started to claw things back. The batsmen soon got things working in their favour with some sloppy fielding and dropped catches so it was left to the skipper to try one final throw of the dice. Karl bowling from the wood end bowled an absolute beauty to remove their danger man with the first ball of his spell and when Cherriott took 2 wickets in successive balls it wrapped up a fine win for the Street and finally broke the skippers 100% record.

Another great day of cricket on a perfect summers day.

P.S. I was only kidding about the double headed coin! Honest………

NOTABLE PERFORMANCES:

• M BANNISTER 115*
• P JUPP 92
• R RAVEN 3 FOR 53
• C HERRIOTT 2 FOR 7
• D RIBAUDO 2 FOR 22