Keyworth Avoid Groundhog Day

Keyworth firsts this time finished on the winning side in a dramatic last over victory over the visiting Attenborough II’s at a glorious sun-baked Field of Dreams. Skipper Tindsley was away with the sweaty masses at Glastonbury and IG was driving a fast car slowly around Rockingham race way, so Bobby Baker once again took up the Captain’s armband for the day.

After winning the toss he gladly elected to bat, sending Marc Bailey and Ted to the crease. Marc was soon out LBW for 9 but showed everybody the mark on his brand new bat to show he’d got an inside edge on it. The Elliott father and son partnership batted well for the second wicket but it was Ben (67 in 60 balls) who made all the running and secured his status as No1 on Shelley’s list.

Ted was eventually out in the 18th over after crashing just four runs in the 50 balls he faced. Boom-Boom went for a long walk and a lie down under a tree to dream about the sound of willow on leather. Still, at 77-2 off 20 overs it was a good start.

When Ben eventually fell after looking set for three figures, Jamie Vickers and Steve Rendu (37 in 38 balls) put on 78 for the 4th wicket taking the Millers to 176-4in the 40th over. Similarly to last week, the middle order struggled to find regular boundaries in the last 8 overs with Dave Strong (11) and Dale Collison (2) falling before Jamie (61* in 96 balls) and AC (4*) took the innings to a close on 216-6, perhaps 15 short of par.

Tea was a Hiller sister spread with highlights being sausage and chutney wraps and a fruit salad that drew comments from Shelley on the juiciness of the melons.

Fresh from his holiday, a bronzed Rocket sped in and his fourth ball bowled the opening bat to get KCC off the best possible start and followed this up in the 5th over with number two. Loving the prospect of coming up the hill on the hottest day of the year, Strongy (0-32 off 7) bowled well without any luck or help from the umpire who turned down an absolutely plumb LBW. AC came on first change down the hill and his two overs for 13 summed up his day that included a dropped catch and a through the legs miss-field for four. Andy Hiller bowled well to replace Strongy with his figures of 0-32 off 8 including 11 wides. Beaky again showed a safe pair of hands and took a sharp leg side stumping off a Baker wide.

The visitors were making steady progress with 97-2 off the first 20, and 122-3 off 30, with the opening batsman doing nearly all of the scoring from one end. Baker and the returning Rendu bowled out the last 18 overs, but the Keyworth clowns were in town again with 6 chances being put down, allowing the visitors to get to 163-5 off 40. With their opening batsman still at the crease, Attenborough sniffed a victory.

It all came down to the last 2 overs with 17 required and 3 wickets remaining. Bobby’s last over included a wicket and a big 6 to leave him with figures of 4-65 off 16, and 7 required to win. Rocket (4-52 off 15) bowled the final over which saw Andy Hiller keep his head to take a catch at long on, and then the No11 unable to put bat on ball to leave the opener stranded on 103*, falling just 3 short of a perfect run chase.

The Attenborough scorecard was bizarre in the fact that the next top scorer was 42 extras, and then only 2 other batsmen got into double figures with the highest being 16.