Our fourth game of the season proved the easiest to win comfortably – away at Bexley at their beautiful Manor Way ground, the scene of Beckenham U11As triumph in the softball tournament only two days previously. Captain Harrison, fresh from just 2 hours of sleep (don’t tell his Mum or Dad please) on his last night of PGL, lost the toss and Bexley opted to bat.

It didn’t take long before this seemed to be the wrong decision as they slumped to 1-2 in the face of some excellent aggressive and accurate bowling first up from Tim and Ellie with a wicket each. The spinners then took control with four excellent overs between Oliver Shelley and Bertie Gamble.

The middle 4 overs were a little less controlled, with wides, in particular flowing regularly. Looking through the game on PlayCricket which I use to help refresh my memory when writing match reports, it is at this point that the scorers seem to have realized that the game was up and forget how to use the scoring app. For starters, there are in fact, only 19.1 overs registered on the app, despite us bowling 20!

Either way, a very creditable end to the innings saw only 3 runs coming from the last 4 overs, bowled by Jamie, Struan (3 wickets) and Albert (1 wicket) and Bexley finished on somewhere around 90/8. Our batting target was set at 91. Other wickets were taken by Oliver and Jack. Oliver also took a superb running catch at square leg.

In fairness to Bexley, they looked a very young side to be playing U13 cricket, and it didn’t take long for Harrison and Struan to tuck in to some medium pace bowling, hitting a number of leg side boundaries between them. Sadly, we’ll never know the true balance of who scored how many runs, but my best guess would be that Harrison was eventually retired on about 40*, giving Bertie a chance to win the game in as shorter time as possible, which he did, hitting two sixes partnering Struan who carried his bat for what the records show as 25 runs (!).

The game ended thankfully early – with Beckenham scoring the winning runs in the 10th over. The scoring finished a farce, but there was no doubt who won. We absolutely massacred them, and were better at every point of the game. The bowling was nearly always on point and aggressive. The batting was good, and the fielding was much better than it has been previously. All good things to take forward to a big game on Monday away to Bromley.

My last point is about my ongoing quest to make sure we play in the most sporting way. Most of the players in the team have been the beneficiaries of my temporary blindness when they’ve been batting – some of you now several times, whether it is LBW or run outs. You all therefore need to remember that it works both ways. If you don’t want to be given out when you’ve been hit on the pads by a ball pitching on middle stump and going on to hit middle half-way up, then don’t expect me to give these out when you are bowling.

It was very disappointing for me to hear some Beckenham players complaining audibly within earshot of both umpires that “we’ve had 5 LBWs today that should’ve been given”. We should all look at how Ollie and Bertie behaved when they had decisions turned down. Both simply turned round and got on with their next ball without so much a whisper of dissent or upset. Please all follow this example.

Man of the match goes to Harrison for his wonderful, stylish yet controlled batting. We will never know exactly how many runs he scored, but the innings was chanceless and full of quality shots. Credit also to Struan for his three wickets and scoring an also unknown number of runs with the bat.

Bring your A games for Bromley please!