Offham continued their excellent start to the
season with their third straight win. On a very
hot and sticky afternoon Gravesend Rugby Club
forfeited the toss as they arrived for the first
league game without an umpire, and consequently
faced a very uncomfortable three hours in the
field.
Offham, with a depleted batting line-up, made a
shaky start losing 2 wickets for their first 20
runs. From then on a century stand between
captain Neil Willis and Nathan Faulkes slowly
wrested the initiative from Gravesend, and
a following patient innings by Daniel Blakeburn
ground the bowlers down. Faulkes went on to
complete a fine century before falling as one of
a late flurry of wickets as Offham sought quick
runs in the last 10 overs. Phil
Carpenter's lusty stroke play however took the
home side to a fine 218-9.
After
the tea interval the Offham bowlers tore into
the opposition top order. Daniel Blakeburn
removed one opening batsman first ball and
captured a second wicket in the same over.
Gravesend slowly tried to overcome these early
setbacks but were always on the back foot as
Dean Heighes and Phil Blakeburn applied further
pressure. Rajanathan Rajathurai injected some
pace to the Gravesend innings with some forceful
strokes and threatened to swing the game their
way, before Peter Mcgonigle struck to take his
first wicket for the club. From this point on 20
points seemed a likely outcome for Offham and
they wrapped them up with 15 overs to spare.