Willoughby 2nd X1 travelled to North Kilworth for this week’s midweek fixture, with a positive mood due to winning their first league game last week.
For the third week in a row the skipper won the toss and elected to bat first. With another new opening partnership of Stu Hall and Dave Alcock, saw Willoughby off to a very positive start with Willoughby reaching 83 before losing the first wicket in the 12th over which saw Dave depart for a well made 27. Which brought Ambrose Deery to the crease for the last 5 overs. Willoughby ended up on 119 for 1 off 17 overs , with Stu finishing 32 not out and Ambrose 26 not out with 2 big sixes of their quick bowler.
Willoughby took to the field believing that the total they had put on was very defendable on a tricky batting surface. The opening pair of Mark Fell and Sean Thornton made steady progress by preventing the batters from getting many runs leaving North Kilworth 23 for 0 off 6 overs. After 11 overs the hosts were 60 for 2 after some tidy middle overs, unfortunately the next 2 overs went for 28 leaving the hosts needing 32 off the last 4 over, we knew this game was going to go down to the wire. With one over to the game scenario was Willoughby had to only allow 4 runs to win, 5 runs meant the game was tied and 6 meant the hosts would win. With Mark Fell to bowl the last over the game was poised, the first ball went for one, the second was a dot and the third was wicket, which was one of the in batsman in Watson who fell for 42. With three balls to go the hosts needed 5 to win. The fourth ball was a single and the fifth ball was edged for 3, leaving the scores level and one to win off the last. So, the field came up and everybody was ready to stop the single. Unfortunately, the batsman chipped the ball in the air just to the side of mid-off, which meant Willoughby had lost on the last ball.
There were many positives again that we can take into our first home league game next Wednesday against Dunchurch and Bilton.