Halkyn v MIMCC – 5th June
After a few stragglers finally made the revised 12.30 start time, Halkyn won the toss and put MIMCC in to bat. Weather looked fair, but the track was greener than an engineering apprentice sent up to the foreman’s office for a long stand. We weren’t overly confident.
As tosser of the day, Apples made up for his poor calling ability by putting on a fantastic opening partnership with Siv. Wise to the folly of mentioning impending milestones with his opening partner, Apples posted a superb 88 while Siv reached his first 50 in the season in style. Siv was first to fall bowled for 52 when the score was at 120.
Abs put on a short knock of 7 before being run out (partner S Applewhite…) followed by Will with some crunching boundaries in what felt like a very long outfield for 29.
Tom quickly found his feet and enjoyed nearly lapping Apples for a quick 36 off 22 deliveries.
Apples by now was a broken man, muck sweat pouring from under his lid and he finally tapped a ball back to the bowler having been accurately cursed by scorer Jonty the ball before (“88 is an unlucky score…”). Great knock.
Cam on his first appearance this season started windmilling as soon as he joined Tom, out for a quick 11 and Andy added 4 to see a magnificent total of 265 posted.
Don’t think Halkyn had that in the game plan when they put us in!
After tea we went out – noting as best as possible the locations of ankle-snapping rabbit holes dotted about and the clouds started to settle overhead. Tom and Cam opened the bowling – even getting their hands on a new ball so we must have been feeling flush with ourselves. Cam struck in the 6th over, with a spooned catch to Fordy at mid-off. Tom bowled Dan at the end of his 5th with a wicket maiden, finishing his spell at 1-13. Cam finished his spell on 2-11. Naturally with such improving form from his openers and swing in the air, the skipper decided a change of bowling was required.
Sanath and Jonty were first change, Jonty getting a wicket with his first ball, a maiden is his next over and a wicket maiden the following. Steve Pugh will be congratulating himself he’s semi-retired and missed the whooping adulation of the crowd on such a stellar performance. Like the openers Sanath got some swing going and in his third over picked up the key wicket of Shaun Gibson with a beauty to skittle him.
Fielding throughout the game was pretty tight and we frustrated any hope of a point for Halkyn by 25 overs. Mention also for gloveman apples – he had enough energy left to pick up a catch for Matt in his 4 overs, with Fordy getting in on the action with a wicket (ct) on the last ball of his spell. Cam added another couple of wickets in his final over to see off the tailenders on 4-12 off 6. All the bowlers (apart from skip with a filler 2 overs) got wickets at reasonable economy to close out Halkyn at 96 all out.
A great team performance with bat and ball – and another 15 points!
Top of the league..
Andy Meakin – Captain, MIMCC