Penn Street vs Penn Street Village

Penn Street CC beat Penn Street Village CC by 2 wickets

The weather for the other marquee game of the season, against Penn Street Village, was surprisingly similar to that of the week before the game against the Cross Arrows. Once again, the general gloominess and damp atmosphere caused the captains agreed to pay a shortened game, this time of 35 overs a side.

Penn Street Village batted first and found it incredibly difficult to get going against the Penn Street bowling attack. David Adams and Matt Hewlett were just far too quick and hostile, whilst the change bowling of Jamie Fryer (seven overs, two wickets for nine runs) and Asif Teja (seven overs, one wickets for 13 runs) were just too accurate. Wickets were picked up at a regular basis, two of them from two excellent catches by Adam Rawlings. For the Village there were brief cameos from Josh Tollerfield and Jack Mendy and a nuggety innings from Sam Hennell, but no Village batsman managed to pass 19. The name of the Penn Street bowler who chivalrously decided to try to bounce Izzy Tollerfield and rapped her on the hand must, sadly, go unrecorded.

Faced with only 102 for victory Penn Street must have been confident of an early finish and a quick visit to the pub and so it seemed for much of the time. Although Jonny Barnett fell early, bowled by Caitlin Macken, Matt Hewlett and Jamie quickly set about the Village bowling before Jamie skied a catch to Izzy Tollerfield off the bowling of Simon Hennell. At this point, though, things started to go slightly awry for Penn Street.

Alistair Cossins was the first to fall, inexplicably patting the club secretary’s first ball for the Village straight back to him. Thereafter the batting ran into all sorts of trouble against Phil Cross and particularly against the Village captain Ilya Joel-Pitcher, who bowled an inspired spell of seven overs for just eight runs, picking up the wickets of Matt Hewlett, Alex Woest, Simon Fox and Jeremy Knox along the way.

Fortunately, the club had left something in reserve and it was left to David and James to see them home through a last wicket partnership, although even then they were fortunate after James was dropped behind the wicket when three runs were still needed for victory.

Ilya was awarded a bottle of champagne as Player of the Match. It will be a sad day when he, Kylie, Ava and Lily leave us to return to Australia.