On a day that did not promise a lot of cricket, a truly remarkable game.took place between Petersfield and Wickham. Petersfield won the toss and elected to field first to try and give themselves the best chance of winning the game.
On a dry pitch ( despite all the rain during the week) Wickham started slowly but steadily before Martin Rowe played back to a ball from Frank Straw(2-16). Martin Reed fell in the next over to a slower ball from Oscar Windebank (1-10) to remove him for a golden duck.
Peter Gywnn (14) fell to a catch a deep long on off Frank Straw (2-16) by Chris Salmon in the over after that leaving Wickham 28-3. Richard Stephens (2-19) returned to the attack after being not needed the week before to remove Bob Haywood (5) caught and bowled. The combination of pace from one end from Toby Austin (2-12) and spin from Stephens at the other worked well for skipper Straw. Austin had Martin Rowan (6) caught at gully by Chris Russell before catching Jon O’leary (5) off his own bowling to leave Wickham 55-6. That soon became 55-7 as Stephen had Steve O’leary (1) trapped plum in front lbw.
Chris Russell (2-16) then bowled David Chetri (4) leaving Wickham 64-8 before the heavens opened and the rains descended to halt the victory charge. The new covers were deployed (sponsored by the Paradise Balti House) and hoses attached but a lot of the players thought that was game over with still another 12 overs of the Wickham innings to be bowled. One attempt to get the covers off looked to have succeeded an hour later only for the rain to start again just as play was to resume. After a lot more hard work soaking up the water on the square using the the waterhog play resumed at 5pm.
Petersfield continued with Russell and Stephens and Russell removed John Gywne (10) but Andy Gwyne and Steve Judge batted out the overs to score 89-9.
After some frantic adjusting of the scores Petersfield were set a victory target of 54 from 20 overs, at around 2.5 runs an over this looked a simple run chase with the sun now out and no more rain clouds in sight.
Chris Salmon (2) and skipper Straw (4) opened the batting and set the tone for the early part of the run chase as David Chetri (5-13) blew away the top order with accurate left arm seam working on the old principle of you miss I hit, the only members of the revised top order who looked comfortable were Andy Butcher (6) and Ed Milford(10) who took the score to 18-5 before Butcher was caught. Ed Milford played well and with Chris Russell took the score to 28 before both went quickly and the winning score looked a long way off with 7 down. The crowd knew it would only take a couple of steady heads and last week's opener Toby Austin (7 not out) and all-rounder Oscar Windebank (17) took the score to 51 before Windebank was caught at mid-wicket trying to pull to the short boundary. Rich Stephens (2 not out) and Austin saw Petersfield home with 8 balls to spare.
A big sigh of relief from all especially the skipper as a nail biting game of cricket came to an end. Well bowled by both sides and well done to the Petersfield 2s players and spectators to get the game finished after the afternoon deluge. Not many games were played in any division so the money invested by the club in water hog and covers paid dividends. A game played in good spirits despite the weather interruptions.
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