Lordswood made it four wins out of four in the Premier Division at the weekend with a comfortable 69 run win over Blackheath at The Peter Edmonds Ground at Martyn Grove.
After electing to bat in magnificent Medway sunshine, the top of the Lordswood innings simply couldn’t cope with new Kent seamer Arafat Bhuiyan who mopped up the first three wickets in a fiery opening spell – bowling all three batsmen, all of whom appeared to be beaten for pace.
The sole early resistance as the home side batted to score thirty off the first ten overs was Joe Gordon who steadied the ship and then gradually pressed the accelerator along with skipper Callum Macleod playing a supporting role, the pair added forty-eight for the fourth wicket before the innings was given real impetus when Jack Laraman joined Gordon.
Coming together at 85-4 in the 20th over, their partnership may have only lasted ten overs but when Gordon was dismissed for a magnificent 83 (60 balls, 13 fours and 2 sixes) to the first ball of the thirtieth over, they had added sixty as Lordswood went into the final twenty overs looking to push on.
Laraman continued the onslaught when he left for thirty-four which included three huge sixes – one of which was onto the roof of the social club – there was still over twelve overs left and the score was “only” 187.
At this point, the visitor’s spinners spun their craft on a now baked wicket and overs 35 to 45 yielded just seventeen runs, edging the home side past 200.
Lordswood were then indebted to Thando Ntini and Abdullah Nazir for an incredible last 16 balls of the innings that yielded 40 runs and gave the home side a respectable 245 to defend.
Yet at the start of the Blackheath innings, the visitors looked well set. Despite losing George Wells early on, Tejpal Birdi and keeper Ross Richardson saw their side to a respectable fifty-five after fifteen overs.
The introduction of the home spinners applied the brakes as they had done with the Lordswood innings and Blackheath soon slipped well behind a rising run rate.
The middle order tried to up the tempo but the bowlers always seemed to have the upper hand and three wickets from Hugh Scott really gave Lordswood an advantage that they were never to lose and in the end it was only down to their final pair – Jas Bassan and Bhuiyan – that they reached the 175 target for a batting point after slipping to 151-8 with more than ten overs to go…
Pictures supplied by Allen Hollands.