BTCC V Wolverton

An eagerly awaited derby to mark the halfway point in the season saw Bletchley host local rivals Wolverton.

Concern for all the sides with a number of senior players either unavailable or injured saw the 1^st X1 take one of our opening batsman, and our wicket keeper.

We were also missing Coops and Chris Greenway so the weakest side of the season took to the field.

The Captain won the toss and asked Wolverton to bat.

The decision was taken to open with Euan at one end and spin with Ben Shepherd at the other; we were only fielding 4 fit bowlers so a long session loomed ahead.

With two experienced stalwarts (Garrini and Kightley) opening the batting we knew it would take concentration to keep them quiet, as they knew which balls to attack.

Ben struck early having Kightley caught by Jude for 11.

He then had Butler caught for nought by Hobbs.

Garrini was looking comfortable and being joined by Dawson they then looked to attack Hobbs who proved to be expensive and was replaced by Kane after 7 overs.

This combination reduced the run rate and then Ben struck again removing Dawson for 31 to a superb reaction catch by Turner in the slips who appeared to just stick out a hand to a ball that was travelling and it stuck.

Kane then chipped in with 2 quick wickets Baker caught at slip by Turner for 5 and Grant guiding the ball to Smith at point for 4.

Time to ring the changes, Ben replaced by Jude bowling “spin allegedly”, some wag in the field commented that Jude couldn’t “turn a tap on let alone spin a ball” but he did induce a mistake from Garrini and he fell for 25 caught Hobbs at mid off.

Jude was not expensive but was not troubling the batsmen.

A double change saw the return of Shepherd and Hobbs.

Ben removed Iqbal (0) caught and bowled Dickinson (8) fell to a blinding catch by Brooks in the covers of Hobbs.

Change again saw Jude and Kane return and the last two wickets were removed LBW Mahmood for 14 of Jude’s bowling and Hogston for nought off Kane.

This left Barnes stranded on 34no.

Wolverton closing on 153 of 47 overs

We were looking for a solid batting start, and Matt Shepherd looked in fine touch scoring a number of boundaries in his 17 before being out LBW to a dubious decision in his opinion from our umpire, the bowler was Hogston.

His opening partner Smith was in for a long time but only managed 1 before being bowled by Mahmood.

Mahmood then removed Turner for a duck and we were having a mini wobble.

After 13 overs the Wolverton captain Dickinson entered the attack.

Fox was batting and with Jude at the crease the instructions were to play the balls on merit and look to get near to 100 before attacking.

Fox perished for 18 bowled by Dickinson but Jude was starting to look imperious and with Tom Brooks as a partner we were still in the hunt at 105 -4.

Brooks foolishly ran himself out for 10 and Jude was looking for another partnership.

Ben strode to the wicket and he and Jude took a liking to the bowling of Kightley and Iqbal hitting a flurry of boundaries.

Kightley going for 24 off his 4 overs and Iqbal 31 off 5 overs.

Mahmood returned for a final push but his one over cost 10 runs.

Ben hit the winning runs of Iqbal with a 4 seeing us over the finishing line in 31 overs.

And the moral of this story Catches Win Matches we took 8 in all, this has let us down in the past but the fielding was brilliant today and we had a deserved win.

The second half beckons with a home tie against Cropredy, the reverse fixture was washed out, but they are flying high lying second in the division 27 points ahead of us.

Wolverton Innings

 Bletchley Bowling

Bletchley Innings

Wolverton Bowling