A strange start to the day almost saw Ian Turner miss the match to an untimely bout of old age. However, with the dons batting first there was a chance for bowlers to put their feet up. It was a tough start for the dons, with some tight bowling from Hursely park. Lavous and Collings Wells crawled to 16-0 after 8. Their patience was rewarded after a change in the bowling, and the two put on 69 for the first wicket. Lavous was dismissed by Green and Atkins and Pongolo soon followed, Nono's run of form ended by a trigger. After drinks wickets continued to fall. Mann and CW put on 34 for the 7th wicket before Collings Wells sought to force the issue and was castled for 76. Mann and Shinn came together with a history of run outs behind them, however despite their best efforts they shared a crucial 29 run partnership before the innings collapsed again to 166 all out. On an improved ridge meadow wicket this was well below a good score, and every bowler would have to perform for them to win.
Not much more to add to tea this week, unfortunately I am going to be lazy and say 'as good as last time' with my mark. It should be pointed out that excellence repeated still leads to excellence. Dan Hewitt really liked the sandwiches, and they sufficiently cheered him up to be able to put his ropey dismissal to the back of his mind and open the bowling.
Unfortunately for the dons Hursley got off to a bit of a flyer, and were 30-0 off 5 overs. However, after filling up on tea, Hewitt was now too heavy to bowl his usual no balls, and saw the opener off LBW. Rupert followed this up with a rare LBW of his own, before completing his customary 10 overs 1 for 30. At the other end a fired up Pongolo got straight into his work, and sent the middle stump cartwheeling to see off the other opener. In a great 5 over burst Pongolo took 2 further wickets including an outstanding catch by Nick Scutt. With the dons in a good position it was left to Kyle Shinn and Ian Turner to squeeze the life out of the game, Kyle bowling an excellent spell of 7 overs for 11 runs. After taking one wicket he appeared to bowl Hursley's captain, however Scutt thought to the dismay of others that it might not have hit (spoiler alert, it did). The batsman failed to capitalise however, and proceeded to give catching practice to mid off, Atkins taking his second catch of the day. Turner finished his overs with one wicket and Pongolo returned to clean up the tail, with two quite brilliant slower balls. 5 wickets for Nono, our overseas player is quite good!