Return to Collingham

We all arrived in good time (except Fitzy!) at Collingham and the sun came out for the rest of the day on their very smart cricket ground.

We were given the choice and decided to bat and got off to a wonderful start! Larry & Knight walked out to the middle hoping for a steady, solid partnership. Larry was caught behind off the first ball of the match! At no. 3 came James Watling, a new player to Romany and he scored a solid 40 on a very slow wicket with some good spin bowling. Knight retired on 53 to leave Holden & Holden at the crease “to get on with it”. This they did and moved the score on quickly with regular boundaries, George 25 and Hugh 30 not out was joined first by Tashmail 28 and then Fitzy 14 not out, to take us quickly to 208 for 4 from 35 overs. The whole innings was watched by a full balcony of guests at a Christening reception, who seemed to enjoy the Romany All Star batting, sadly they didn’t get to see our ‘experienced tail wag’, as Elgot, Hawkins & Bowen did not bat.

At the interval we had a wonderful tea, perfect to build up our strike bowlers for the job in hand – Hawkins had extra cake!

We opened with spin and medium pace to unsettle the young opening pair and Nick and Jamie did a fine job. Collingham’s young batsmen scored steadily but did not keep up with the run rate and we took regular wickets from our 7 bowlers. One of their batsman had a fine innings and scored a very good 85 not out (he also had bowled very well earlier). After 35 overs, Collingham made 149-9. It really was a good game to play in, with all 22 players either batting or bowling and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it.

Matt Knight