Monday June 08, 2009

Saturday 23^rd May vs West Wycombe (Home)

Fulmer beat West Wycombe by 5 wickets

With the May sunshine beating down on Fulmer, the bleach-blond track prepared for the home fixture against one our regular opponents, West Wycombe, looked ripe for run-making.  

So it was to prove. Batting first, Fulmer made a solid start thanks to openers Ian Fisher (20) and Jules Gibbs (18) and no. 3 Tony King (32), all exhibiting some clean hitting. Upon Jules’ demise at 74-3, Nick Box came to the wicket having dropped down the order following a disappointing run opening the batting. Able to free up his game slightly, Nick set about punishing some fairly wayward bowling and posted his first 50 of the season. Shortly before this he was joined at the wicket by father Pete, to share their first significant partnership for Fulmer. The pair added 96 runs for the fourth wicket, until, unaware how close he was to the ton, Nick holed out to mid-off on 98. Pete was then unlucky himself not to reach 50, finishing on 48 not out in an impressive Fulmer total of 263-4. 

To their credit, West Wycombe came out all guns blazing, with their opening batsman setting the tone by launching his second ball faced for six and off the premises, never to be seen again. He proceeded to make one of the fastest 50s seen in some time at St George’s field, but was eventually cleaned up by Dave Paddon following the ‘you miss, I hit’ philosophy. Dave (5 wickets) bowled some excellent stuff in a marathon 17-over spell, and he was ably backed up by Mark Denness, Mark Overall and others.  

With the departure of their big hitter, Wycombe dropped anchor and focused on batting out their time. Fortunately Fulmer managed to whittle out wickets and with five overs to go needed just a single scalp for victory. The No.10 batsman, however, proved to be extremely difficult to dislodge, offering nothing to the field. With the last over looming it seemed that Fulmer were to once again be frustrated when Dave Paddon produced an absolute jaffa to bowl the last man with the final ball and send the fielding side and spectators into raptures in an ending that will not be forgotten for some time.