The 3’s secured promotion with a 5 wicket win over a great bunch from Knebworth Park.
Leading wicket taker Rob Hatrell got things off to a great start, ending with the incredible figures of 8 overs, 7 maidens, 2 for 1!! 47 dots and only one scoring shot!!
With the taking of the 5th wicket (LBW golden duck bowled Flook) the 3’s were guaranteed promotion but once all 10 had fallen for 76 a win was in the offing.
Naman also had remarkable figures of 5.3 overs, 4 maidens, 3 for 1! Flooky ended with 8 overs 3 for 25 and John Nelson ended his fine season with 6 overs 2 for 23. It was a good all round bowling performance providing a fitting end to the season in the field.
The chase got off to a wobbly start as we slumped to 41 for 4 in the face of some particularly good fast bowling from a 14 year old girl (one to watch surely). Luckily we had El Presidente Tim Lane guesting and he and slightly younger Ed Gaeton calmed the nerves taking to us to within 8 of victory before Tim fell and it was left to the other youngster, Tom Fuller, to join Ed and see us home.
We caught up with captain Ian Tyler after the game for his views on the season:
“Reflecting on the season just wanted to say what a great bunch the 3’s have been and to get through the second half of the season with a 100% record is an impressive achievement. Most games we have had a bowling attack that was simply the best in the division and a seam attack of Rob, Richard and Shaun is a great asset. In terms of batting Naman has been our lead scorer but the team have scored 2019 runs in league games for the loss of just 69 wickets which is an average of 29.26 which is a pretty decent average and lots of people can take a bow.
Whilst fielding is never going to be our strong suit we have had some good keepers with young Ed Gaeton the pick of them and we have taken a pretty high proportion of the catches offered to us, which is absolutely key.
In short it has been a great team effort. It was fitting yesterday that it was our two youngest players (Ed and Tom) playing yesterday that were at the crease as we scored the winning runs.
I will finish with one nice stat. We scored more points in the head to heads against the three teams who beat us in the first half of the season when we returned the compliment in the second half!
Per ardua ad adstra.
