The Mongoose and the Golden Duck

It was a lovely sunny evening for the last match of the season against our good neighbours Braunston Paddox (BP). Stand in captain Ben Hollis won the toss and elected to bowl.

It was a great start for Willoughby with Hassan Nawaz opening up with a maiden from his shorter run up. Patrick McDonnel was next up and good deliveries were interspersed with a few cruel leg side wides and a quick single which turned into a 5 due to four overthrows. Hassan took the first wicket of Will Burgess who’d scored a spritely 20 and finished with figures of 1 for 15 off 4 overs. Jake Quinney’s second over was his best, a superb double wicket maiden, clean bowling both batsmen to finish with figures 2 for 8 off 3 overs. Darren Cox started well with two streaky boundaries off Richard Foxon’s first 3 balls. However he tried once too often and was clean bowled by the next delivery. Richard took 2 wickets for 10 from his 2 overs, the second a comfortable catch by Martin Nichols over with the cows. The continual stream of wickets meant BP were 54 for 5 off 11 overs. It was then the turn of John “The Legend” Gregson met our expectations with his masterly of flight, speed, line and length to take 2 for 6 from 4 overs. Kishan Parmar bowled a tidy 3 overs for 15 runs with 1 wicket. Usama Khwaja and Ben Hollis finished off the innings with an over each. Ben bowled tightly and was unlucky to go for 2 runs. Tom Sabin, 14 not out and Jordan Shingler, 9 not out provided some resistance and the innings closed on 88.

Martin Nichols and Sean Thornton opened up and the score moved briskly to 43 before Sean fell for 15 bowled by Aston Shingler. Expectations were high as Ben swaggered out to the middle with the Mongoose in hand. The Mongoose didn’t disappoint Aston Shingler who picked up his second wicket as the ball passed the extended handle of the Mongoosen onto the stumps. Fleetingly the Mongoose was no longer lonely, befriended by Ben’s Golden Duck. Aston was on a hat trick but he couldn’t get passed Matt Smart’s forward defensive shot. Martin Nichols increased the pace and played some fine shots to the boundary but was out caught just before skittle o’clock for 23. Richard Foxon and Matt shared a partnership of 30 before Matt was given out LBW just 6 runs short of victory. Richard finished things off in characteristic fashion with his fourth four in his innings of 18. Hassan contributed well with a stylish 2 not out.

It was a good game, well captained and played in good spirits with our good friends from BP. The win was a fitting end to a good season for the midweek XI which saw us finish third in the table and semi-finalists in the cup. Well done to Simon Nicholls, the usual captain, and all that sailed with him! Had we played 13 games like the top two teams and won it whilst maintaining our run rate we’d have finished on equal average points to the Old Laurentians and would’ve been promoted with a higher run rate. Perhaps next year.