Away v Barton Seagrave – Peaky Blinders mini-tour – won by 27 runs

Address: 22-, 62 Barton Rd, Barton Seagrave, Kettering NN15 6RX

Peaky Blinders tour – Barton Seagrave match report

So the first match of our weekend tour arrived as we headed up north (of Watford!) to play our great friends Barton Seagrave – worries about the weather were unfounded (apart from some passing showers during the afternoon) as we enjoyed some rare sunshine.

Our hosts won the toss and invited us to bat – our team was a mixed bag of Graces and guests –  representing Great Oakley CC , our regular ringers Henry, Martin and Dan as well as some Barton Seagrave youngsters – Owen , Morgan (yes!) and Ben.

Henry opened with Owen who was soon bowled bringing Henry’s dad Martin out to join him (disappointingly not the first time these 2 have batted together) – these 2 batted well taking the score to 46 before Martin was caught by our man Matt in the 8th over.

Tim then came in at 4 adding 10 before being bowled – 72 for 3 after 15 overs.

Our batting wheels then came off in a big way as 5 wickets then fell for only 7 runs!

Thankfully Henry’s wicket wasn’t among them as he had played without trouble in what’s been a great season for him.

He and Dan added 20 important runs for the last wicket as we were all out for 126 after only 28 overs – surely at least 50 runs short of anything defendable. We had 5 ducks in our innings! – Henry was last out for 66 – extras were a generous 23.

Understandably our hosts bowling stats contained some fine figures – Mr Oldham top of the pile with 6 overs , 4 wickets for 7 runs.

Pick of the youngsters fearless 12 year old Annabelle bowled 6 tidy overs picking up 1 wicket for 21 runs

As we took our BYO teas skipper Stuart was considering his bowling options as we needed to bowl Barton S out with such an apparently low total to defend.

Mr Boot and Gardener , Barton S’s openers looked solid taking the score to 37 in the 7th over before Dan bowled Mr Gardener for 11. Matt (in at 3) then had the misfortune to face the ball of the day which bowled him first ball!

2 more wickets soon followed – 47 for 4 in the 11th over and the match was in the balance.

A mid innings partnership of 40 between numbers 5 and 6 (Lock & Oldham) was looking to take it away from us but when Stuart threw the ball to Henry his perfect day continued as he ran through the lower order in only ten deliveries taking an outrageous 4 wickets for 5 runs!

Our hosts were all out for 99 in the 21st over and we had won by 27 runs!

We had bowled and fielded really well, a big shout out to Dan who took 3 wickets for only 8 runs in his 8 overs (5 maidens)

So a very entertaining first match of the weekend and we squeaked a win – after socialising with our generous hosts we then all went for a curry in Kettering!