The December visit by King’s to The Willows was rained off – so it was a relief that the weather was fine for this rescheduled match, if very windy indeed all day.

King’s won the toss and put The Willows in to bat, but Dave “Run Machine” Kelly and Phil Harris saw The Willows off to a good start with 45 for the first wicket. Then Dave and Liam Campbell combined in an excellent partnership of 85 for the 2nd wicket, to put us in a very strong position. Once Dave retired with a wonderful 100 not out, the rest of the batting fell right away and we ended up with only 206 off 48 overs. Indeed in a very lopsided innings the first three batsmen scored 151 runs but the last eight only 27 between them.

So our score was well short of what initially looked likely, but King’s bowled and fielded extremely well and several good catches were taken. Casey Short and Kyle Burns both bowled very accurately, while left arm chinaman bowler Jack Oaten showed much promise in taking 3/38.

In reply, the King’s openers batted very sensibly. After tea Mark McGoldrick and Ryan McEwan both bowled well, sharing five quick wickets between them, the score slumped from 59/0 to 85/5. At this stage we were back in the box seat, but then Connor Murray and Nathan Hastie got established in a classic right hander/left hander partnership. They both batted extremely well and also put pressure on the field with some quick singles. They upped the tempo as they closed in on the target, eventually getting there comfortably with over five overs to spare and after a superb unbeaten partnership of 122. The King’s lads were an absolute credit to their school and thoroughly deserved their memorable victory.