Rye Cricket Club travelled to Crowhurst Park last Saturday, in a friendly game in preparation for the August Cup competition that starts in a week’s time. Rye’s captain Harry Smeed lost the toss and Crowhurst Park elected to bat on a decent looking wicket on a glorious sunny day.
Toby Farrow and Craig Pierce opened the bowling and bowled with good discipline and restricted the run scoring early on with Pierce making the early breakthrough, to reduce Park to 3-1. Hambridge (34) and Powell (90*) built a strong partnership of 65 until James Smeed (1-43) removed the latter,. All the Crowhurst Park batsmen made scores around Powell, to post a competitive target of 245.
There was certainly some rust shown in the field, but every bowler bowled well and with a team that was missing numerous first team players it was a good effort all round.
Rye knew that someone needed to get a big score to have any chance of winning the game, but that didn’t quite happen.
Most of the batsmen got starts with Harry Smeed (21) and Luke Payton (22) but a good partnership was made between Ellis Hatter (19) and Mark Cook (48) who batted positively against a strong Park team. Toby Farrow (25*) showed off his brilliant stroke play, to show that he is more than capable of becoming a prolific batsmen. Rye ended up all out for 190. It was a good start to the season with players getting important game time in the legs considering the long lay off from any cricket.
This Saturday a 1st Xl travels to play Hythe, and a 2nd Xl travels to play Ide. Both games start at 1pm, and are 40 overs a side.
The following Saturday the August Cup starts. Rye 1st Xl will face in their group, Seaford, Eastbourne 2, Bexhill, Hastings 2 and Crowhurst Park. The 2nd Xl will play Pett, Iden, Robertsbridge, Bexhill 3 and Eastbourne 3.
Hard ball nets for juniors returned on Thursday, July 23 for 5 weeks, 6-8pm. We have a few spare places, please contact blincsfamily@aol.com to join, as all attendees must pre-register.
Image Credits: Martin Blincow .