Far from ideal preparations for the 4th XI as just before the start of play we learned of one of our selected players being held captive by his girlfriend and was now unavailable.

Combined with the rest of club (minus O'Cal's bowl out heroes) deciding they had better things to do than spend a Sunday afternoon playing away at Stayley 3rds in the rain, with no teas.

It was never going to be an easy afternoon for our 7 juniors and 3 senior players, however as has been the case this season those who represented us did so in exemplary fashion.

Captain Lord lost the toss (tails !?!?)(things did improve from this point). Shaw were invited to bowl first and Stayley kindly lent us one of their youngster to make our team up to 11. Dickter and Freddie bowled consistently well in the rain which made bowling and fielding extremely challenging with the ball resembling a bar of soap for most of the first innings. Both bowlers were unfortunate that many edges found their way to the boundary and a dropped catch before Dickter got us rolling by bowling their opening batsman. After they had finished their quota of overs on came Laila and Lexi who shifted the moment our way with a couple of wickets each, both showing excellent control in testing conditions. After they had finished their quotas the spin twins of Sinclair and Lord were introduced and despite the conditions now improving showed nowhere near the control of their predecessors however Lord did manage to burgle a couple of wickets, one of which was a half decent caught and bowled. Stayleys lower order batted very well and a last wicket partnership of 70 took them up to 200.

In reply Freddie looked in control punishing the bad ball until he hit one up in the air. Theo looked like he was just getting going when he perished. Playing alongside the openers was captain Lord who retired on an unbeaten 55 off just 26 balls (a quick knock so he could stay out of the showers we beleive!!) Young Michael who Stayley had lent to us offered some resistance as he scored 21. Noah and Rossi hit a couple of great boundaries before they were dismissed and Cammy looked solid before running out of partners. We finished up on 133 all out off 27 overs 67 short of Stayley's target. With their last wicket partnership proving the difference.

A great effort from all involved, fantastic commitment from kids and parents and definitely lots of lessons learned about playing in difficult conditions. Thanks as always go to Captain Lord for sorting the game, and Dickter and Cammy for helping get the game on and their efforts with the juniors.