Linton Park
208-4
Knockers
186-7
A hot afternoon in the field was to start the contest at the picturesque Linton Park ground. Captain for the day Lynden Spencer-Allen lost the toss and Knockers were asked to field first on a sweltering afternoon. Dan Turner and Lynden opened the bowling and asked questions of the Linton Park openers but failed to make the initial breakthrough. Ben Rumary finally made the first breakthrough with Lynden taking a catch at mid off. Cowan meanwhile held a tight reign at the other end with the only scoring shots being off the rank long hops that were accompanied by the great roar. James Marshall and Simon Slater, on debut, both tested the opposition with their spin bowling with Simon taking two wickets in one over.
Linton Park's batting continued steadily but slowly without Knockers able to make significant inroads. Turner and Spencer-Allen returned to try to find a further wicket but it was Rumary who took a further wicket with the first ball of his second spell with a cracking leg cutter. He then failed to hit the cut strip for the remainder of the over and was saved from another by the Linton Park declaration at 208-4.
The Knockers reply started averagely with James Marshall and Paul Styles falling cheaply. Simon Slater and Martin Goff then built a solid partnership to launch the Knockers attack. They maintained the required scoring rate at around 5 an over and Knockers looked set for a successful run chase. With around 11 overs remaining of the match Goff was caught trying to pull the Linton Park opening bowler. Geoff Smith then carried on the gauntlet of maintaining the run rate with Slater until he was trapped right in front of his wickets to be out LBW by the Linton Park captain. A number of batsmen came in and attempting to go for the win for Knockers selflessly hit out without much success. Slater's excellent debut knock ended prematurely on 96 when attempting a second run was run out just short of his hundred.
The Knockers innings ended runs short of Linton Park when the time was up. A valiant attempt at the run chase was a good effort from the Knockers and the end result does not necessarily paint the picture accurately with honours fairly evenly shared after another good contest between Linton Park and Knockers.
 
Batsman |   How Out |   4s |   6s |   Runs |
---|---|---|---|---|
Paul Styles |   bowled |   0 |   0 |   10 |
James Marshall |   caught |   1 |   0 |   4 |
Simon Slater |   run out |   0 |   0 |   96 |
Martin Goff |   caught |   0 |   0 |   38 |
Geoff Smith |   lbw |   0 |   0 |   6 |
Chris Pearson |   not out |   0 |   0 |   6 |
Tom Cobb |   bowled |   0 |   0 |   0 |
Lynden Spencer-Allen |   bowled |   0 |   0 |   4 |
Ben Rumary |   not out |   0 |   0 |   3 |
Dan Turner |   dnb |   0 |   0 |   0 |
Ken Cowan |   dnb |   0 |   0 |   0 |
 
Bowler |     Overs |     Mdns |     Runs |     Wkts |
---|---|---|---|---|
Dan Turner |     12.0 |     3 |     47 | 0 |
Lynden Spencer-Allen |     8.0 |     0 |     33 | 0 |
Ken Cowan |     7.0 |     3 |     16 | 0 |
Ben Rumary |     6.0 |     1 |     36 | 2 |
James Marshall |     4.0 |     0 |     30 | 0 |
Simon Slater |     4.0 |     0 |     23 | 2 |