City United Thirds Under Pressure

City United v Bective East at Riverside 2
City United 144 (Ben Cleghorn 35, Cory Callcott 30, Josh Allen 28x) and 153 (Michael Bellamy 39, Simon Bellamy 38, Tim Hunt 38) lost to Bective East 324 (Ben Cleghorn 4-83, Josh Allen 3-76) by an innings and 27 runs.
It would be pointless to sugar coat the situation after the first day. Against a side which has been undefeated all year and which is strong right across the park, the prospect of taking 17 of their wickets whilst scoring enough to catch them and set them a target is a daunting one.
However ... stranger things have happened on cricket fields. Faced with the question "what is enough runs against Bective", we could ony must a semi-target which proved inadequate but it wasn't for a lack of trying. Cory Callcott batted with great responsibility in the middle order helped by Robbie Smith. The ever reliable Josh Allen was again superb in the tail. He found an aly in Ben Cleghorn who played probably his best innings of the season.
With the ball, all of our bowlers tried hard and Paul Lawrence gave another gutsy spell for the team despite a reoccuring back injury. Josh Allen was quick and Ben Cleghorn bowled a twelve over spell which caused all the Bective bastmen concern. Simon Bellamy bowled well early in the innings. All the bowlers probably bowled too many wide full balls but that's better than dropping too short.
It's all before us but there's nothing to loose. To paraphrase the President, "it's footprint time!"

Sunday
It wasn't to be, beaten by probably the strongest combination in any of the four grades. We hung in there and at least we bowled them out. Ben Cleghorn and Josh Allen were again the heroes with long, strong performances. Batting a second time, trouble came knocking on the door early and at 4-21, heads could easily have dropped to the floor but Tim Hunt and Simon Bellamy put on 60 and then the Bells Bros added another 55 just to show Bective it wasn't all one way traffic.
Hold your head up fellas. You may have finished second but that's a lot better than the other three City teams. Congratulations to the beating heart of this 3rd Grade side which is a great bunch of young men on which to build a club's future and to Skipper Glenn Ryan, who lead his men with a steadfast calm.
As for next year ...