Penn Street vs Penn and Tyler's Green

Penn Street 216-6 (P. Jupp 94, M. Reavey 84; R. Alexander 2-14) beat P&TG 194-10 (H. Lichfield 39; R. McSorley 3-50) by 22 runs

As the day dawned for the cricketing teams of Penn Street and Penn and Tyler’s none of them knew of the tension, excitement and cirque de soleil style game of cricket that would unfold before them later on in the day. The weather started the day fair with a slight wind and a nice temperature, but would end in a grey gloomy look which probably matched the God of Catching's mood following the display beneath them.

As the team arrived at the Penn and Tylers ground the mood was high and the Street was welcomed by our hosts for the day. However Penn Street's first stepping stone was the appearance of only 10 players, some frantic phone calls later led to a desperate message that was left on Matt Bannisters phone seeing if he was available, only to finish with the line “oh don’t worry you have just arrived”. Fortunately for the team Matt had his cricket kit in the car and was able to play. With a full team of 11 in place and Captain Rob Sutherland rallying his troops ready for the game ahead everything got under way.

Penn Street batted first and opened with Matt Reavey and Steve Smith, who put on an excellent start for Penn Street, with Matt scoring 12 in the first over. However, this pace was not to continue and Matt settled into a good rhythm. Steve held tight and once again his body continued to score more highly than his bat before he was given out for a duck, but he had contributed a large number of byes. Out Came Peter Jupp who joined Matt with some regular scoring that kept the score board ticking over. In an extraordinary decision, Juppy was given out following a catch off his thigh, but in an excellent show of sportsmanship the Penn and Tylers team recalled him. They were truly showing the Great Spirit of Cricket, but by the time the innings was over they were regretting it heavily as Juppy ploughed onto a score of 94 and Matt continued onto 84. A few others contributed to the score and the innings was to end with 216-6 for the Street after 40 over’s. There were some notably good bowling performances from J Morris and C Smith who helped keep Penn Streets score down.

After an excellent tea break came Penn streets turn to field. During the tea break the team had decided to change from cricketers into part of the local circus act, ready to practice their new juggling talents, as well as dodging flying ball skills thinking they may have been juggling knives. It all started well as the first act saw Jack bowl a bit of a beamer at the opening bat, only for him to hit it in the air and allow Jacko to practice his "running into people and bouncing off them" act. Following a heavy clash between himself and Andrew Crofts the team were relieved to see Andrew still holding the ball.

Following this however, the team put into practice it's new found juggling skills as Alex Dropped an easy catch, quickly followed by Steve also putting one down. Followed by some more batting and some more dropped catches the Penn and Tylers wickets slowly began to fall. Then there wer some more dropped catches with Rob and Matt Bannister joining in the action. Matt put together a brilliant spell of bowling taking 2 good wickets. This was promptly followed by some more dropped catches. As the grey sky rolled over the game seemed to be drawing to a close, however some more dropped catches meant it carried on nearly to the death.

Penn street eventually managed to pull out a 22 run victory with 1.5 over’s left to play. Penn and Tylers put on a brilliant performance both with the bat and the ball and have a lot of young players with a lot of potential for the future. Penn Street will mostly be remembered for dropping catches - mind you, they still managed to take 5 Wickets through actual catches!

Man of the Match: P. Jupp