A good fixture to get at late notice, sunday's match was anticipated by a Cowdrey team of mixed experience, ranging from Freddie Greehy making his adult debut to his father Mark dusting off his whites for a rare outing!!

Rooney kicked things off by winning the toss, and with overcast conditions, inserting the home team to bat. A strong start was made with Geoff Connolly (8-4-12-0) bowling very efficiently and Mike Tubb (7-3-15-3) starting off superbly with pace and swing, frustrating the batsmen who did not enjoy swiping at thin air for 8 overs!

George Apps then continued the pressure, along with his wicket taking habit of late making another breakthrough. At the other end Freddie Greehy started a successful debut bowling great lines and getting his reward with a lovely in cutter taking the top of offstump! Large celebrationd ensued it being Freddie's 1st adult wicket! (Sorry Mark thats a jug!!) Mark Greehy also turned his arm over surprisingly well, taking a nonchalant caught and bowled that was hammered back at him. It was thought a little unfair though when he misfielded from his sons bowling, its suspected he wanted better figures than Freddie!!

At this point Locksbottom were on the back foot with the scorers not being troubled regularly with the exception of Walker who was shortly removed by Rooney.

Pressure was continued by the Cowdrey bowlers including Rooney, Smithy and Garth but a late and aggressive innings of 58 by Wells helped Locksbottom set a target. Wells batted well but 3 dropped catches resulted in a larger total than was earier expected. 1 drop catch did deserve a special mention, Dave Elliot down on the long on boundary soared like salmon through the air preventing a 6 but palming the ball down thinking he was landing over the boundary despite landing hard well inside the rope. Spectacular fielding nonetheless!!

Some typical mighty blows from Stevie Smith (37) set the Cowdrey reply of to a good start and he was very well supported by little Leo Holmes (17) before Steves off stump was disturbed as he played defensively along a completely different line!! Impressive and steady batting continued by Leo then Freddie (8) helped the scoreboard tick along nicely but the starring role was played by number 3 bat Rob Hood. For once batting with a sensible head and composed aggression Grandad (Hoody) was the backbone of the innings. Garth ( 13 n.o.) made a swashbuckling appearance to attempt to keep Gramps from his 1st half century for a few years but 2 crashed straight 6s took him and Cowdrey over the line with over 2 overs to spare.

Surprisingly this week nobody displayed enough ineptitude or comic clumsiness to warrant a muppet award so all in all a good performance all round!

RM