On a warm sunny day, Sevenoaks Vine hosted newly promoted Bickley Park for their opening Kent League Premier match of the season. Skipper, Olly Howick, won the toss and in front of a good crowd, significantly augmented by Hockey Club Vets festival players, elected to bat first.
On a slow early season wicket the Vine top order found runs hard to come by and early wickets fell regularly. With the scoreboard at 47 for 4, Miles Richardson joined Max Aitken and they put on a stand of 27 to steady the ship. When Aitken lost his wicket, Richardson was joined by Cyrus White and they set about building a recovery with a stand of 112.
White started cautiously whist Richardson began to open up, hitting some glorious boundaries and looked set for a well-deserved century when he ”missed a straight one” trying to accelerate the scoring and fell, bowled, for 82. White, growing in confidence, took up the charge, hitting a big 6 straight back over the bowler’s head with 52 not out at the close of the innings, his maiden 1st XI half century giving the Vine a creditable 207 for 7.
Bickley Parks’ inning closely mirrored that of the Vine, the top order falling cheaply, with two wickets for the pacey Richardson and one each for Tom Parsons and the debutant Alex Christie.
At 42 for 4, the target set by the Vine was looking vulnerable. In a series of twists and turns the game was there for the winning by either side as a run out and a quick Yorker by Man of the Match Richardson, his 4th wicket in 10 overs, set up an exciting finish. Some terrific fielding by Max Aitken and Tom Coldman, resulting in two crucial runouts, saw Bickley Park all out in the last over just two runs short.
Reflecting on a well-deserved win for the Vine and a welcome 18 points, Head Coach Rick Parsons said: “I was impressed by the team spirit today, and the application that had seen both the batting recovery and calmness in the field as Bickley closed in on the target”.
Seconds
Sevenoaks Vine 2nd’s arrived at Hartley with plenty of new faces amongst the old for a difficult first match.
Put into the field first, Vine opening bowlers Boudville and Procter provided the Hartley batsman with some outstanding balls; however, they played the openers well with Green leading the way making 83, caught by Coleman. Fortunes changed when spinners Reid-Dick and Thompson were introduced, bowling with great accuracy with wickets falling at regular intervals. Thompson picking up 3-30. Procter (2-54) and Robinson (3-13) cleaned up the lower order with Hartley finishing on 235 all out.
The Vine chase didn’t start out as hoped, losing Harvey early on, but Thompson and Quinney negated the Hartley openers well until Quinney was caught for 17. This was the beginning of a difficult period for the Vine losing wickets regularly and struggling to negate the Hartley seamers. The Vine finally being bowled out for 69.
Thirds
Sevenoaks Vine 3rd’s travelled to Rochester to play Sherwood 2nds in the Kent Regional 2A Central league. Sherwood won the toss and elected to bat, tight bowling from Gavin, Tudor and Martin kept the run rate down to two and a half runs an over from 30 overs and kept Sherwood down to 146 for 8.
Harry Houillon and Mike Martin opened and posted 47 for the first wicket, Martin falling to the first lofted drive stalling in the air and caught at mid on, but it was to be Houillon’s day batting all the way through for 102* to add to his 2 stumpings and one catch behind as he returned to keeping after breaking his ankle… but there’s still room for improvement he did drop one all be it a hard chance.
