The first NCC junior league game took place last night when the U12s played Bexhill at home. The weather all day had been more rugby than cricket season but at about 4pm the sun fought its way through and the game, which started at 6pm, took place in glorious spring sunshine. The ground looked magnificent.
NCC won the toss and batted first. The pitch was an archetypal track for the time of year - slow and low with some lateral movement off the deck. This provided a good competition between batsman and bowler which was great to watch.
Captain Gutteridge got a start as opener but wickets soon fell in alarming succession. Bottle in at 5, and feeling very under the weather with nausea and a headache, steadied the ship laying the foundations to get the innings back on track before a run out dismissal. Pleasingly the tail wagged hard with the Braxton boys pitching in and Hall batting at 10 scoring 20 invaluable runs which was a superb effort. A total of 99 looked eminently defendable given the conditions and the fact that this was the 1st match of the season for both sides.
NCC took to the field with 10 men as Bottle had seemingly succumbed to his lurgy. Bexhill had an impressive opening batsmen who struck a powerful 30 in the first 10 overs before being retired as per the league rules. However wickets fell with monotonous regularity around the mainstay of the Bexhill batting lineup. All the bowlers pitched in with a wicket or two as the innings progressed. The cliche that catches win matches was never more evident as the fielders supported their bowlers with velcro-handed acrobatics - not a chance was spilled. It really was a team effort all round in the field and included tidy keeping from Taggart A. Bexhill never looked like getting over the line and the return of their star batsmen from retirement was not enough as the NCC bowlers cleaned up the tail around him bowling the oppo out for 75 and an emphatic win.
Special (and nepotistic??!!) mention must go to man of the match Bottle who, Lazurus-like, came off his deathbed halfway through the bowling innings to rejoin the field, got a hat-trick in his first 3 balls (although this included 1 no-ball wicket) having also scored some runs. He then went home and straight to bed...
There is plenty to work on with a focus required on not giving wickets away when batting to poor deliveries. And we will face far stiffer competition in the weeks to come. But this was a very promising first effort and the boys should all be very proud of their collective performance.
Any questions on the NCC juniors please contact simon.bottle@alphadiversify.com