6th June – Brixworth Thirds (a)
Bright but windy conditions welcomed the seconds to the St David’s Playing Fields Brixworth, for this Division 10 fixture. Only two changes this week with Jack Quennell “back from retirement” and Matt Irons making welcome returns to the seconds fold.
At 1:10pm a momentous occurrence, Ryan won the toss for the first time in five tries. The Cooks bowled and they soon had a stranglehold on the game. This week Tony took just three balls to strike (last week four) clean bowled. With both Tony And Syd looking dangerous on a greenish but flat wicket Brixworth were soon reduced to 1 for 3, there was no rest bite for the Brixworth batsman from the accurate bowling as the fearsome pair continued to regularly take wickets backed up by tidy catches from the rest of the team, especially a spectacular effort by Matt Irons at short leg to the disbelief of the home victim. When the “pace twins” had completed their respective spells nine Brixworth batsmen had been sent back to the hutch for sixty runs. The innings was soon completed as Smokey just needed one ball to claim the last wicket leaving the Cooks to chase 61 in 62 overs. After an inspection of the score book a couple of curious postscripts to the Brixworth innings came to light. The home team suffered 6 ducks and 6 of the batsmen fell to the 6th ball of that respective over, together with a final score of sixty, the number six seemed to be the order of the day.
After an early tea the Cooks started their reply inauspiciously with both openers departing, with only only 13 on the board. Things got worse with the skipper, his brother and Mark Bird departing in quick succession to leave the quest for victory teetering on the edge of disaster. While this was going on, Dave Patrick whose appearances for the seconds are quite infrequent, was intent on preserving his wicket at all costs. Now joined by Matt the pair were content to wait for the bad ball and helped by the enforced withdrawal of Brixworth’s young opening bowler who had claimed 4 wicket in his 6 overs (that number again!). The score now climbed steadily closer to the small target and just when it appeared the pair would guide the Cooks to victory Matt was dismissed for a valuable 16. This left young Tom to seal the victory with a boundary, to give the Cooks victory and 27 precious points.
The Cooks opening bowlers paved the way for this well deserved victory, by ensuring a very modest target was set. Although the seconds reached the finishing line most of the batsman were far from convincing and improvement is needed to ensure that the bowlers future efforts are not in vain. Much credit is deserved by veteran top scorer Dave whose dogged batting calmed the nerves to gain victory over old rivals Brixworth, after four consecutive defeats inflicted by the thirds.