Penn Street vs Wendover

Penn Street 229-4 (M. Reavey 100*, G. Culbert 58) beat Wendover 178-10 (R. Raven 5-10) by 51 runs

Penn Street continued their season revival with a 2nd win of the season and a 3rd straight game undefeated.

A dull and wet day saw the visit of a Wendover side with some confident, talented and at times fairly vocal young cricketers!!

Skipper Matt Reavey and George Culbert opened the PSCC innings with an assured stand of 115, whilst having to endure sledges such as "this guys got more blocks than Legoland" from a superb 12 year old wicketkeeper with plenty of verbal encouragement to offer!! When George fell for another stylish fifty, swiftly followed by an unlucky James Sempill, Matt was joined by Rob Sutherland in explosive, stroke playing mood. As Rob unleashed his fury, Matt got to 50 and quickly moved on into the 70s after dispatching some inviting leg breaks to the square leg boundary and one into the pub. The pair put on 60 before Rob was eventually bowled with 4 overs of the innings left, after a superbly entertaining 25.

Enter Damo Ribaudo to smash 3 consecutive boundaries and lend useful support to Matt as the final over arrived with Matt needing 4 runs to reach his first ever century after years of trying!! Thanks to Damo's clear thinking and unselfishness, Matt found himself on 99 with 2 balls left of the innings and with the opportunity he'd been waiting for! As the penultimate ball was dug in short (far from his favourite area!) Matt just about got some bat on ball to scamper through for the single that took him to 3 figures.

The innings ended on 229 for 4. A healthy total in some appalling conditions.

After tea, the conditions deteriorated, but we'd braved so much already that no-one really considered giving up on the game at any point!!

Wendover, scarily raced to around 80 in the first 10 overs and through a couple of let-offs via one piece of comedy fielding from the skipper (conditions to blame of course!!)they were soon in the driving seat at 120 for 2 off around 17 overs.

Then, however the tide turned massively in our favour. Cliffy started to gain a gradual hold of things at his end, picking up a vital 2 wickets, Damo toiled well for little reward, then vitally Reece Raven came on from the Wood end and turned the match. After a useful catch at cover at an important time in the game, Reece then ignored his injured ankle to return figures of 5 for 10 in 7 overs of superb seam bowling.

The game was now firmly back in PSCC's hands, and though Wendover's young lower order put up impressive resistance, there was still time for James Sempill to shine with a useful display of off-spin that suggests he could become a future Skywalker to Cliffy's Yoda!! (No offence Cliffy!!)

Our other bowler worth a mention here was Tyler Armiger, who came on for a 2nd week running to bowl an accurate spell and was this time rewarded when a superb yorker clean bowled the Wendover player to give him a well deserved wicket.

The game was wrapped up soon after and PSCC had won a hard fought contest by 51 runs after looking in some trouble at the halfway stage of the Wendover innings.

A great effort by all to turn it round in torrid conditions.

Third game unbeaten - The start of a famous PSCC run??!!

Notable performances:

• M. Reavey - 100*
• G. Culbert - 58
• R. Sutherland - 25
• R. Raven - 5 for 10
• C. Culbert - 2 for 33
• T. Armiger - 1 for 13