It had been a while since the League side had played an away fixture and this quickly became apparent when, at 1:00pm – 30 minutes before the start, only the Skipper and Umpire had arrived.

During the coin toss, at 1:20pm, our numbers had swelled to 5 resulting in a fairly easy choice to bat first should we win the toss… which we did not.

Checkendon generously allowed us to delay the start slightly as the latecomers started to arrive and we soon kicked off with 9 in the field.

The first over quickly summed up the game as 16 (!!) runs came from it – 12 from the batsmans pads, ably assisted by a lightning quick outfield. However there was immediate hope as Duncan skittled their Captain with the final ball.

However any hope of quickly gaining the upper hand was quickly extinguished. The Checkendon batsmen looked to assert early dominance as, now with 11 in the field, Farley were helpless to prevent a steady stream of boundaries. Looking to mix things up, John Cox was brought in to bowl the 6th over and soon had a wicket LBW, leaving Checkendon at 41 for 2. With Duncan bowling quickly at the other end things once again looked up, but disaster was soon to strike!

A collision between batsman and bowler in the 8th over saw John taken out with damage to his shoulder. Unable to continue, John left the field resulting in Farley being left somewhat short in the bowling experience department. In addition, the long delay in game while John tried to recover resulted in a loss of rhythm from the bowlers, and Checkendon immediately toll – taking additional advantage of Farley fielding with a player short.

Farley’s part timers ably tried to stem the flow but the quick outfield and positive batting proved dispiriting as the runs were piled on. A sharp catch by Greg and nice James Harvey run out helped, but the run rate continued to rise. The legendary Paul Holland, ex-Farley Hiller, then came to the wicket at 6 and took advantage of the short roadside boundary to heap further misery on Farley.

The upside in the end was that Farley managed to bowl Checkendon out in the 43rd over.

The downside was that they had managed to plunder 297 runs – the highest league score vs Farley in the past 8 seasons (and probably considerably longer!!! – ever?)

A down dressing room knew that it would take a herculean effort to survive the 47 overs with only 10 batsmen, but hope sprung from the fact that it was a very quick outfield. If we could just occupy the crease for a time the runs would come. Taking this to the extreme, Ross and Chris opened up determinedly with only 8 runs coming from the first 8 overs – the Checkendon bowlers containing any attacking shots with an excellent wicket to wicket line.

Chris was eventually dismissed caught and bowled bringing Simon to the wicket. He quickly dispatched the first ball he received to the midwicket boundary and the shackles started to come off. From 8-0 off 8 overs, Farley rapidly accelerated to 71 for 1 from 16. All we needed were a couple of centurions and we may well be there! However a change in bowling resulted in Simon edging to slip for an excellent 29 and Checkendon were back on top. Ali came to the wicket with improved confidence after last weeks resilient knock, and soon struck 2 magnificent cover drives to the fence. However he was soon caught a square leg for 9 and Peter received a good first ball and chopped on to his stumps.

Going in for the kill, Checkendon took the strategy of offering Ross (somehow still in) an easy single in order to attack the middle order and tail. With the field up, this enabled Duncan to get great value for shots if he could find the gaps. However after striking his 4th boundary he got a little carried away and soon missed a straight one to be bowled for 17. With 5 wickets down and 20 overs still remaining, Farley held faint hope of surviving. Further calamity occurred as Greg appeared to rick his back early on and had to be escorted from the field – unable to return. With only 9 fit batters Farley seemed doomed.

James and Ross set out a resolute defense, Ross continuing the take the singles on offer as James was handling the bowling well with a large stride down the wicket. The 150 was passed and with 10 overs to go things were looking better but James was soon induced into a false stroke and was dismissed for 12. Potts soon followed caught behind for a duck and suddenly the last pair were together with 7 overs still to bowl.

Mark Harvey played out the rest of the over but then Ross, looking to manoeuvre the bowling in order to farm the strike, received a shooter to lose his stumps for 71.

Farley Hill had been bowled out for 172 – a commendable effort, but a heavy defeat.

So Farley Hill came out of the game with 8 points (3 x batting, 5 x bowling) – a big improvement on last week but still not what we wanted!

Surprisingly we still sit in 9th place on the Division One table, above Emmbrook.

Next week we return to our home ground to take on the mid-table Pinkneys Green.

However we appear to have a growing injury crisis!