The Second XI suffered a chaotic defeat at the hands of Old Basing III’s on Saturday, with few positives coming from a poor performance with bat and ball (with a couple of exceptions).
Batting first, Steve Savage got done done by an Oakley worm burner for a duck but Jack Brundle and Dan Jones tried to guts it out on a difficult pitch to bat on.
However, once Jack (11) and Dan (24) departed, there was only minimal resistance with Ian Bennett banging a quick-fire 19 and Bob Lethaby (15) and Gordon Scott (14) briefly halting the procession.
There was also some controversy with dismissal of Bob, who was batting well, when he was stumped after failing to wait for the umpire to call ‘Over’. It was an over-zealous, albeit correct appeal that came via a combination of naivety and bad sportsmanship and resulted in the Oaks finishing on 101 rather that the 130-150 required to make a game of it.
Defending the target, the Oaks had to bowl and field well but they didn’t, with a plethora of wides and byes (29 in total) allowing Old Basing to coast along before the excellent Perry King slowed down the procession with two wickets in a tight spell.
Other wickets went to DJ and Raj as Old Basing wrapped up the game without alarm and consigned the Oaks to a relegation battle and the arduous task of finding some accuracy with the ball in hand.
Otherwise it was really good.
The Oaks face Romsey in a make or break game this Saturday and need to find a way of cutting out all the extras to get the win they require.
Up the Oaks!
