The second week of the season brought with it the typical challenges – availability – with 6 players missing from the opening weekend. This brought fresh faces and fresh opportunities, with 3 second-team debutants featuring against a Tynemouth side, who had also won on the opening weekend of the season.
Tynemouth won the toss and elected to bat. Things began well as we reduced the visitors to 25-3 with Joes Kilpatrick and Torre opening the bowling and debutant Prahalad Nadella taking a wicket with his very first ball. Unfortunately, our guests recovered as the innings progressed and finished strongly posting 218-9 from their 50 overs. While there were a number of good moments during the first innings and the Tynemouth batsmen deserve credit for their temperament and resolve, we lacked a ruthlessness at key moments and came to rue some sloppy passages of play (wides and misfields in particular) which allowed the visitors 30 or 40 runs more than they ought to have gotten.
In response, Hayden Mustard and Adam Heather put on 79 for the opening stand to get us off to a good start. Hayden anchored the innings well but didn’t get the dynamic assistance the chase required. Just as he was looking to kick on, he was out for a well-made 67. With the score at 128 and overs running low, we always looked like underdogs for victory. Despite some rear-guard action from the tail and a few lusty 6s from Winnie, we inevitably fell just 12 runs short – left to lament what might have been. A disappointing end, but the effort and endeavour shown despite the selection crisis, gives us a lot to take from this result moving forward. Onwards, to Sunderland next week.
Scorecard is availble here : https://www.play-cricket.com/website/results/5024709
