Ley Hill lost a closely fought away match against Cublington in the league. Ben Woodbridge won the toss for Ley Hill and put the league leaders into bat. Their openers made a rapid start, and soon had Ley Hill on the back foot. However, tight bowling by Hill’s captain (4-0-11-1), helped to peg back the run rate. But the real star was Rory Sore, whose inspirational bowling placed Hill in the driving seat. Rory bowled 4 overs for the cost of 9 runs, and took 5 wickets. At once stage, he took two wickets in consecutive balls, and narrowly missed out on his hatrick.  Ably supported by Peter Garland (3-0-14-3) (who in any other game must have been a contender for man of the match himself), Ley Hill reduced Cublington from 40-1 to 51-9. The killer touch however was missing, as Cublington’s final pair managed to rally their score to 83 before Josh Wright took the final wicket. Hill had produced one of their best fielding performances of the season with Josh Wright (2), Ben Woodbridge (1), and Thomas Jeffery (1) all taking good catches.

Ley Hill’s innings in reply started solidly but slowly. The score was on 31 before they lost their first wicket in the 11^th over. Jamie Lewis scored 8 and Tom Cullen scored 18 (his best score of the season). The middle order however, gave way under the pressure to score runs at the required run rate. On a deteriorating wicket, many of Hill’s batsmen were flummoxed by the increasingly erratic bounce that often failed to get above ankle height. Alex Humphrey with a rapid (12) offered the greatest resistance and threat.  Despite this, the team for the second match running found themselves needing 24 runs off the last three overs. Unfortunately, the gallant efforts of the last wicket pair of Tom Jeffery and Rory Sore were not enough to drag the team to victory.   Tom being narrowly run out in the final over.

Lessons to learn are for the team to time their innings better and be more aware of the singles that are on offer. Two batsmen were out, simply because they failed to ground their bat! If there was ever a game that showed that a missed ball in the field or missed runs when batting could be the difference between victory and defeat this was it.

Rory Sore was given the man of the match award by Ian Partington and singled out for special praise by the opposition team manager.