On a cloudless day and against one of Kemsing Cricket Club’s ‘Bogey Teams’, captain Grahame Wood won the toss and had no hesitation in batting on what the Groundsman described as “a good track”.
When young Jake Wood was given out in the 29th over, one side looked a lot happier than the other. 201 for the first wicket of the day was a new father and son record and the fifth highest partnership in KCC history. What a great effort by both Woods!
“Grahame had been trying to get himself out for ages” according to Roger Shaddock. He eventually succeeded three overs later, and went for a magnificent 166 from 105 balls.
This gave James Walkling and debutant Harry Cottle, the remaining eight overs to score 81 to get them past 300 runs. This they did, with Walkling hitting 63 from 32 balls, and Harry with 32 from 22 balls. 310-2 at tea.
Kemsing then set about the task of winning the game with the ball. Cottle opened at the top end, with the ever improving, 16-year old, Nizamudin Oryakheil at the pavilion end.
They also welcomed back Alan Parry, from his self-imposed exile, with the resultant banter volume and quality increasing substantially.
At 33-5, all was going well, as Cottle showed he had some decent wheels! He picked up three and Oryakheil the other two, effectively ending any chance of a shock win!
With Oryakheil reaching his limit of six overs, it was time for Shaddock to come into the attack. However nobody could foresee what happened next, especially the bowler, himself!
Bowling full and straight, with much accompanying noise, he had had three big LBW shouts turned down in his first over, although he recorded a maiden in the process.
Shaddock then took wickets with the second, fifth and sixth balls of his 2nd over, all bowled. The hat-trick ball (first ball of his 3rd over) was where it should have been, pinning the batsman in front of middle and leg, with the Limpsfield Chart skipper for the day, Jason Cummings, obliging with the decision. This was Shaddock’s first hat-trick for 40 years.
Number 11 succumbed to another yorker four balls later and they were all out for just 42 runs. Shaddock’s best spell of bowling for some time finished with an unlikely 5-0. As you can imagine, full-on celebrations at The Bell followed.
