Follie’s Farm, as always, delivered a blisteringly sunny September day for us to play out a 40 over game in good spirits, supported by roast pork sandwiches and crisp Provençal rosé.
Buccaneers arrived slightly short staffed with 10, waiting for S Moules to lose a morning cricket tournament and make the train journey to Godalming.
The Bucc’s batted first and Follie’s struck early, capitalising on an uncharacteristically cavalier Eswar Kalidasan, dabbing a third swipe of the bat to cover on his 4th ball of the innings. Berry held firm for a few more overs facing a fairly mild-paced opening pair without treading on square legs toes. Jeremy Milne came to the crease at Eswar’s demise and rolled back the years with some incredible reading of the occasional uneven bounce and seam. He delivered a mature 43 partnering firstly with young Charlie Leefe, who very characteristically smashed two sixes followed by straight forward catch and out for 29. Milne senior and junior were the pick of the Bucc’s batsmen working well together and remarkably not running each other out. Ludo came agonisingly close to his maiden ton with 89 not out, Tom Fletcher shutting up shop at the other end for 11 from many, many balls. Bucc’s closed out the innings with 221 from our 40 overs.
All star all rounder Ludo Milne opened up the bowling with debutant Thomas ‘Show me the Money’ Chaumet at the other end. Ludo eagerly delivered with 3 maidens and a wicket from his first 4 overs. Chaumet providing some support at the other end but without a wicket to show for it. With the first and second changes came a slight lull in the Buccaneers wicket taking statistics. With messieurs Barson and Griffiths sitting comfortably at the crease scoring 72 and 43 respectively, before eventually falling to Okines & Moules. With 8 overs to go Follies needed 82 to win and the game started to look just out of reach. At close of play Follie’s Farm posted 193 for 6 and fell 29 runs short of the required total.
A lovely day and match in the sun was closed out with some good conversation and even better scampi and sausage rolls accompanied by a couple more bottles of blush, before carriages at 19.30.
Buccaneers won by 33 runs
Innings of Buccaneers
A Berry st CSD b Hicks 17
E kalidasan ct Bell b Kirkham 2
J Milne b Hicks 43
C Leefe ct Maunder b Bell 29
L Milne not out 89
S Leefe ct CSD b M Barson
T Chaumet b M Barson 0
T Fletcher not out 11
Extras 29
Total 226-6 (40 overs)
Bowling
Hicks 8-0-24-2
Kirkham 8-1-56-1
Bell 8-1-35-1
Griffiths 6-0-31-0
T Barson 2-0-29-0
M Barson 8-3-26-2 3
Innings of Follies Farm Old Spots
Lumley b L Milne 0
Palmer stumped b S Leefe 22
Barson ct [ ] b Okines 72
Griffiths stumped b Moules 43
Maunder not out 20
Sandamore not out 18
Extras 17
Total 193-4 (40 overs)
Bowling
L Milne 8-3-23-1
T Chaumet 6-0-32-0
S Leefe 8-1-24-1
A Berry 5-0-21-0
R Hobbs 3-0-28-0
W Okines 4-0-23-1
C Leefe 2-0-19-0
Moules 4-1-16-1