The game didn’t start off as planned as Rye lost the toss and were put into bat. Dan Seabrook missed a straight hit on the second ball and was bowled middle stump, bringing Joe Lovell to the crease with Will Wheeler. Running wasn’t the strong point in this partnership with 3s being turned down regularly due to good fielding and a lack of communication by the pair at times.
Lovell began to find the back wall and was retired on 25 even after being refused a six by the umpire’s leg. This brought the class and experience of Mark Cook to the crease who soon began to get Wheeler running, until he was eventually run out for a slow but steady 22 in the 10th over. Gary Willis then accompanied Mark Cook at the crease and the two ran well and built up a quick rise in the run rate, with Willis hitting a quick fire 15 off only six balls, showing that running can be the key to a successful innings. Rye finished on a below expected but easily defendable 84.
Out came the Parkhurst batsmen who were ruffled by Willis’ bowling with many of the younger batsmen backing down towards leg side; however Willis was denied a wicket after cleanly bowling the opening batsmen, which was halted by the call of a ‘no ball’. On came Ben Clifton who quickly went through a number of batsmen getting figures of 3-7 including a wicket with his first ball – all in all Clifton proved hard to play against. The openers were helped with the bowling changes of Joe Lovell and Mark Cook with both bowlers managing to take a wicket, including a highlight of one of Cook’s variation balls almost managing to find one of the side basketball hoops.
Rye eased through the batting attack with only real resistance from O Shephard who got 13 making good use of the drop and run. Rye were happy to get a good comfortable win in their first game and will look to keep the momentum going into the second match in a couple of weeks on November 6th, and no doubt they’ll hope to improve their overall batting and fielding. Well played by all and a thank you to Spencer Fielding who filled in as scorer at the last second.
Rye CC: 84 v Parkhurst CC: 29 all out.
Joe Lovell is Rye CC captain