We headed to Fownhope for our second end of season friendly, this time a midweek 20-over game. We fielded a combination of 2nd and 3rd X1 players including four Under 17s, against a Fownhope side mostly made up of their 1st X1 as well as Goodrich's skipper to make up the numbers, so a tough match up. I won the toss for the second time in 4 days, and chose to bat this time. Partly because choosing to bowl last time proved to be such as bad decision, and partly because we were expecting the light to fade later in the game and would rather be bowling at that point.

Alfie and Chris opened up, and got us off to a decent start with some nice shots, moving us to 20-0 off the first 3 overs. Unfortunately things slowed a touch after that, as some good middle over bowling tied our batsmen down, with Alfie not quite as prolific as he was during his fluid 48 at the weekend. At the 10 over half-way point we had moved to 51-0 and looked a bit behind the curve at this stage. Alfie was caught out for 16 trying to get things moving, and in came Bradders to show us what aggressive batting is all about. He started cutting loose and hit multiple boundaries, Chris also continued to play positively and retired on a very good 28 not out off 20 balls. Bradders kept his foot down and followed soon after with a swift 26 retired not out off just 16 balls. This brought me and Nick to the crease, I started swinging from the hip and connected with a few until I nicked off for 21 off 12 balls. In came newcomer Dave Hurds to play his first game in 3 years of membership! Despite the long period of no games, Dave quickly settled in and played some lovely shots to keep us moving along nicely. Nick holed out for 4 off the penultimate ball, leaving Ian to scamper a quick single off the last ball and take us to 141-3 off our 20 overs (Dave finishing 23 not out off 16 balls). So 90 off the second set of 10 overs had put us in with a chance.

Fownhope opened up strongly, with some aggressive opening batting in particular from their Goodrich ringer which saw them quickly get ahead of the required rate despite the efforts of our opening bowlers Ethan and Stan. Dom and Chris then came on first change; the run rate increased slightly but both also took wickets as we tried to get into the Fownhope lower order, Dom taking one of their openers c&b and then Chris uprooting the next batsman's stumps with some searing pace. We kept plugging away but Fownhope kept swinging, the initial good shots from the openers being replaced by some agricultural heaves across the line, both equally effective. Alfie came on to bowl a couple of overs of spin and Chris bagged another wicket (lbw), but Fownhope were always ahead of the required rate, in the end getting home with plenty to spare at the start of the 18th over.

They laid on a nice BBQ after the match, pleasant way to finish the evening even if the end result of the cricket had been a touch disappointing. Still, some good practice for the team as we head in to a critical weekend of league matches.

Thanks again to Richard Fisher for scoring.