Looking to get back to winning ways and indeed the field after last weeks rain cancellation, Trinity were welcoming back Sam Driver to the fold for this game. On arrival at the ground, it was pleasing to see a dry, if not a little green, wicket. With clouds forecast to clear by teatime, surely it was a foregone conclusion to bowl first. Skipper Tony Springer, duly lost the toss. On arriving back in the changing room, he had a grin like a Cheshire cat. Woodmansterne had decided to bat first! Game on.

The skipper and Sam were the first to get their hands on the new cherry in ideal bowling conditions, with Sam being virtually unplayable from his first ball. Not being able to get the ball on the stumps (or the edge of a bat) due to movement in the air and off the pitch, he decided to come around the wicket. Second ball saw the stumps shatter for Woodmansterne’s No.1. Sam’s figures of 8-3-11-1 (including three wides) are pretty spectacular when you consider it is his first game in approximately a year. At the other end, Tony was bowling a tidy spell too and was unfortunate to end up with no wickets. In fact, the wickets dried up for quite a while, whilst WCC’s 2 and 3 went about building a partnership.

During such a partnership, thoughts start to come to the fore about a little friendly banter to unsettle the batsmen possibly. We were then enlightened by Richard Parboo that he had played with their number three at Cheam, and he was a psychiatrist, so anything thrown his way in the form of said banter, would more than likely be returned better than Andy Murray managed in the Wimbledon Final!

Richard Parboo and Chris Seymour came on as 1st and 2nd change respectively. The fact that RP was regularly beating the outside edge in his first few overs didn’t seem to faze the WCC batsmen and they piled on the runs almost at will. That was until RP managed to find the ever so needed breakthrough, with WCC no.2 batsmen skying a leading edge easily snaffled by David Sharpe behind the stumps, but not before he had scored 86. Well batted. As the saying goes, one brings two and so it proved on this occasion, with Chris Seymour bowling our psychiatrist friend for 51. Mathanraj Viveganandan and Shri Yadav (Sky) both had four overs each at the death and both of them took some punishment as the WCC batsmen opened up their shoulders to get them to decent total. Raj did manage to bag one more wicket and WCC finished on 205-4 of their 40 overs.

The tea was the stuff of legends it has to be said. Definitely the best tea we have had excluding the tour games. Thank you WCC tea ladies. Truly splendid.

So with a challenging total of 206 to win, Trinity sent out their standard opening partnership of Sharpe and Seymour to get the ball rolling. Things were proving a little tricky for Sharpey as he found it difficult to pick up the length and an ever increasingly difficult bounce. Chris was fairing a little better at the other end and hit some nice shots to keep the score ticking over. WCC made their first bowling change and after the usual sort of ‘Righto. New bowler. Lets see what he has got etc.’ conversation between the batsmen in the middle, Chris slashed at a long hop from his first ball and edged it to the keeper for 17.

Enter Tony at number three. Recent history would suggest that another wicket was likely to fall, as Dave and Tony never seem to gets runs in the same game together. Would it prove so today? Short answer. Not bloody likely. With Tony playing some lovely shots to all parts of the ground and Dave finally finding his groove, they managed to put the WCC bowlers to the sword and make Selva Niran (padded up at number four) regret he even put his pads on. Their 2nd wicket partnership of 173 (Tony 93* and Dave 80*) taking Trinity past the winning post for a stunning 9 wicket win.

A special mention needs to go to James Hewlett and Alex Wilson for their efforts in the field. Both chased the ball around all afternoon.

Well done chaps on a great win.

Now for Lessa W to enter the dragons den.