Old man outshines the return of the Lazar!!
The sun finally shone over Windsor Castle and Home Park this weekend with Windsor 3rd X1 entertaining Hillingdon Manor 3rd X1.
With availability picking up over the week, captain Haynes strode out to toss with an air of enthusiasm as the selection committee had not only allowed him 7 batsman but also and more strangely more than 1 recognised bowler with the 2nd team only taking 6 this week. With this in mind as the coin went up there was little concern as to which side it would land.
As it went Windsor won the toss and elected to bat meaning seasoned professional Tommy Bullock strode out to the square with new recruit Steve Driver. Following Steve’s eventful and alcoholic start to Windsor all were keen to see how the former Bagshot man went on, pleasingly following a couple of wafty shots he started to get his eye in and made an encouraging 22.
Following 3 wickets going down Windsor were not in the planned situation however with guys like Dawson in Noble in the side the 3rd team know how to dig deep and fight for success. The next hour or so saw why they have been playing the game so long as they both played their best knocks of the season so far with Noble scoring 44 and Dawson a very fine 89, if Huggy wants a lesson on how to hit a straight six Daws is available for 1 to 1 sessions at £35 an hour. With the returning Lazarchuzk hitting some outrageously big blows at the end, Windsor finished 239 for 8 off 51 overs.
Windsor Cricket Club at present is in a period of transition and one of these changes is that of teas. No one at the club envied the person having to step into Jayne’s shoes, however a credit to Mrs Lewis as she has certainly maintained the high level of teas at the club, with this week being no exception, never did any at the club think they would be enjoying a spot of pork belly in the interval, but these are not just any old Windsor Cricket Cub teas, these are M & S Windsor Cricket Club teas.
All fully refreshed Windsor returned to the field to attempt to get their season started. With the bowling machine Bean being elsewhere with the 2s Haynes elected to open the bowling with Lewis and Lazar. Both not bowled for a couple of weeks they worked well together and Windsor bowled Hillingdon out for 102 with Lazar ending up 6-23 with Lewis and a couple of overs from Edge mopping up the others. As commented every week the area the team as a whole still need to improve on is the fielding, this week mis-fields and dropped catches didn’t cost us, however future weeks it may!
So a first success for the 3rd team as they try to get back into division 5 where most feel they belong. But really it was a game of 2 great performances, Lazar’s first game back seeing some bowling reminiscent of last years Jay Ganapathy, and he ended up in the 1s, and an 89 which in truth deserved to be a maiden 100 for Dawson meant that Windsor took all 25 points. Next week sees a trip to Chalfont St Peter to hopefully keep the ball rolling.
A Haynes
