Teddington 3s arrived on Saturday, looking in Ferg’s words, to put 30 years of hurt behind us, against a Richmond third team who had started the season slowly.
Following the prior week’s successful formula, TCC won the toss and batted, with Tom Cassady and Rich Lalor getting us off to a flying start.
Tom fell just short of his fifty, but Richard cracked on to make a half-century, joined by Tom Meek who got 88. Steff also chipped in and Andrew Thorndyke added to last week's heroics by smashing a fifty at the end. All in all we smashed them about and everyone contributed and, aided by some dropped catches (there was a theme to the day for sure!), we got to 321-5 off our 45 overs
To be honest, we then started off in too a confident mood, the bowlers didn’t find their lines and there wasn’t the intensity in the field. This allowed Richmond to get off to a blinder and were quickly 100-0 of 15 overs.
Barney joined the attack and bowled really well, to keep a semblance of control. However this coincided with the start of a ream of dropped catches, and a lot of them were not difficult. They were quickly got 160-0 of 23 overs….uh-oh….
Ferg finally got a vital breakthrough and then we kept chipping away, and Richmond were always slightly behind the rate once wickets began to fall. However, until we got their opener, it was game on, and he finally fell at his 6th chance for 149.
We ended up “restricting” them to 290-7, with a fantastic bowling performance by Barney of 2-59, which could have been 6-for. Tom Bangs also came back well and bowled a good 2nd spell.
Barney has already begun talking up his 2nd XI chances, and emailing Baggsy direct, lobbying for a promotion. Luckily Baggsy saw Barney’s meltdown and lay-down protest in the middle of the pitch after the 4th drop off his bowling, so Barney stays with us this week.
A good win, though far more frayed than it needed to be! Roll on our trip this week to league leaders Hampstead with us in confident mood after 3 on the bounce.
Author: Nick Lockwood