Our old friend Mo Mentum gone AWOL

We haven’t played for 2 weeks and it shows. We allowed Weston to do the double over us, when we needed a 3-oh to stay in touch.

A decent-looking side made the trip after a morning hit-up at the Ridge, so some of us did make an effort at preparation. Weston usually has an excellent deck, and a fast outfield, so the aim was to apply scoreboard pressure and let our multiple bowling options go to work after that, i.e., we won the toss and batted.

A few boundaries skittered over said fast outfield but Ahsan fell LB ... where did it pitch? X fell with no addition to the score (23). His dismissal was the first wonder catch Weston pulled off, and by no means the last, but if you don’t hit in the air, and all that ...

Gregg lost his off bail to Snowden, Neil looked good on another of his favourite grounds (oh for last year’s outcome!) but another top catch brought about his demise. Charles and Krunal did not linger, so it was down to Sathees, again on one of his favourite grounds, to produce our best batting of the day. His 33 included 2 big 6s and 4x4. Sanjay fell to another wonder catch, Bobby to a routine one, and at 106-9 we looked down and out.

However, the young and old firm of Smit and Steve dug in with a decent number of overs left, for 10 and 11. After a nick through the slips for 4, SL realised there were no demons in the 5th and 6th bowlers, and runs began to come. The heavy cost was a pinged hamstring which limited the ol’ boy’s running, but confining themselves to blocking the straight ones and biffing the wayward ones, an unbroken partnership of 31 resulted, Steve 26* (4x4) and Smit a dogged 7*.

Bowling plans re-worked, Neil and Charles took the new ball, and both found swing plus occasional erratic bounce. Hopes were raised when the skipper took 2 LB’s in an over, nice full inswingers to lefties, but that was a good as it got for some time.

The experienced bats bided their time and X brought welcome control, while Sathees offered genuine pace and took the third wicket with a nice c&b from a slower ball.

However the uneven bounce led to some difficult times for Ahsan and a few sets of 4 byes accelerated the victory for Weston. Had we been able to shift the top 4 we had genuine hopes, with a long tail, but alas it was not to be. We need to improve, fast, and get back to where we were.