1stXI Match Report : Hayes v. Beckenham
Following the two excellent wins in the previous two games, it was a quietly-confident Beckenham scorer who, having pronounced himself pleased with the selected team, arrived at Barnet Wood Road dreaming of denting Hayes’ runaway charge at the top of the Premier and giving Beckenham renewed hope of climbing the table. But, as the late, great Jimmy Greaves used to say, “It’s a funny old game”. Colleague for the day was to be the injured Miguel Barbosa and no time was wasted in catching up whilst awaiting the result of the toss.
The first small seeds of doubt crept in once the news was relayed that Alex Senn had chosen to bat first having won the toss. A steady start was made with Nick Rigg and Senn negotiating the Hayes openers Will MacVicar and Stuart Eddicott. The score mounted encouragingly with Hayes unable to make a breakthrough on an excellent pitch, hard and with good pace. The first change was made when MacVicar was rested and Connor Byrne took his place and the first breach was made when Rigg (24) feathered a catch to keeper Buttery at 42. The arrival of James Fear brought an increase in momentum with Senn accumulating steadily at the other end. Fear was showing much of his early League form and beginning to dominate the bowling. The left-arm Andrew Eddicott replaced his brother as the Beckenham players completed a fine fifty partnership before the Beckenham captain, having batted solidly and well for 41, played a weak shot against Eddicott and spooned a simple catch to Scott Gallagher who didn’t have to move. Worse was to follow as the catcher, now having replaced Byrne, hung on to a low return catch from Fear (31) which is just what Beckenham did not want. The next few overs heralded what may be described as spineless capitulation by Beckenham’s batting with four wickets being given away for a paltry 25 runs which takes nothing away from the Hayes attack which bowled to a well-thought out plan to which the visitors failed to overcome miserably. The score now stood at 130-7 before Jason Bilimoria and Rob Clements batted sensibly and well for a crucial stand of 37 before MacVicar returned to clean out the tail to end Beckenham’s innings of 171-9 which was better than it might have been but well short of a par score on such a good surface. All the Hayes bowlers performed admirably in taking the nine wickets while restricting the run rate in miserly fashion.
There was now a huge task facing Beckenham’s bowling attack which would need to perform even better than it did in last week’s demolition of Sandwich Town. Hayes openers Gareth Severin and James Bamber settled in seamlessly and soon runs started to accumulate with the former seemingly eschewing the single in favour of crisp drives punched for four. Bamber was the anchorman as Severin cruised on with his first single arriving when his score was 36! His fifty arrived after 55 balls and then he became the first Beckenham success when first-change Harri Aravinthan had him edging behind to ‘Barney’ Balmforth for 52 out of an opening stand of 85. Enter Will MacVicar in the familiar position as in his prolific Beckenham days and he soon began to take toll of the profligacy of the visitors’ attack while Bamber proceeded nonchalantly to an excellent fifty from 73 balls. There was no stopping MacVicar though who batted with great purpose against an attack that was delivering far too many ‘four balls’ and the inevitable victory came in the 35th over with MacVicar unbeaten on 45 and Bamber 64. This had been an excellent performance by the current League leaders who would doubtless be popular champions if they can continue their form into the second half. For the statistically-minded among the readership, the difference in both teams’ performance can be illustrated by the following observations.
Beckenham. Run rate 3.42. No. of boundaries 13.
Hayes. Run rate 4.97. No. of boundaries 26.
Scorecard: https://kcl.play-cricket.com/website/results/5093763 (external site)