This was Blagdons final league game of the season and a win was required to give the 1st XI any chance of avoiding the drop.   After some morning rain, there was some moisture in the pitch so when Boardy won the toss, he was happy to be bowling first.   With no league umpires appointed, retired bowling legend Alson kindly offered to umpire the whole match but the Indians declined this offer, preferring to umpire the match themselves!

Dougie and Colesy opened the bowling and Dougie clean bowled the no. 2 in the first over to get the Blagdon wagon rolling.   Both bowlers showed good pace and accuracy to put the batsmen under pressure and when Colesy removed the dangerous Moon and Kalpit, the Indians decided to dig in and preserve wickets for later in the innings.  This allowed the Blagdon bowlers to bowl with more confidence and keep the run rate very low.  When Scotty replaced Nathan at the Rectory end, he managed to bowl very straight for a sustained period and although he was regularly hitting the pads whilst the batsmen played him off the back foot on a wicket which wasn’t providing a huge amount of bounce, he was unable to get an LBW decision from the Indian umpire.   Scotty’s final figures of 1-38 off 15 overs were excellent but actually deserved to be more like 6 for 30.  There is no doubt we would like 15 overs from the old boy every week.

Colesy should also be singled out for an excellent spell of bowling up the hill returning splendid figures of 9 overs 2 for 22, showing real consistency of pacey line and length bowling.   Robbo replaced him for a metronomic spell of just 7 runs in 6 overs and Blagdon had forged a strong position going into the closing overs.   However, the Indians were able to add a few late runs with decent hitting and good running which was only slowed up at the death by Nathan who returned yet another strong bowling performance 14 overs 3 for 60.  At just 17 years of age, he has been absolute joy to captain and our most regular and consistent performer in his first season in the first team.  Well done Dougie.  By the way, they finished on 147 for 9 in their 45 overs.

After a cracking tea, supplemented by some quality tiffin provided by Pippa, Blagdon opened the batting with Gilbo and Wally.  Unfortunately, Gilbo got a good one which came up the hill to clean him up in the first over, but nerves were quickly settled by Wessy and Wally who put on 46 in rapid time before Wes was done by a brilliant leg side stumping from the 97 year old keeper!

Witho joined Wally and bosh, these boys started scoring at an electrifying rate.   Wally played some powerful stylish shots especially down the ground and through the covers, whilst Witho made sure he got settled in first and then smashed the ball to all parts including 6 massive sixes, and he may need to raid his piggy bank as we think he lost 4 balls in the process!  Superb partnership, both batsmen finishing 50 odd not out, 100 partnership, game won inside 19 overs – awesome!

Unfortunately, news from Coombe Dingle where Uni Staff had hammered Pucklechurch, means we have finished in the bottom 3 and relegation is a genuine threat.  We await news from the WEPL on the 14th September as to whether 3 teams will be relegated from the divisions above and thus impact on us the same way.