Week 2 - Fantasy League - Spencer's take Early lead
The women's race was won by Kimutai Patience in 02:30:45. Ros Garrod - DNS.
Greetings from a damp Geneva where their city marathon is taking place. There were some excellent performances this week which have led to many large fantasy scores and huge changes in the league table. The Spencers have taken control of the top of the leaderboard leading to concerns that they are influencing JNG’s selections!
The first XI had a comfortable win against Malmesbury. Batting first, Winsley’s total of 337-6 was initially set up by an opening partnership of 150 between Charlie Holton 49 (79 fps) and Freddie Richards. Freddie Richards went on to score a fine 102 (172fps) and was man of the match. Freddie was out when the score was 193 but a final total of 337 was largely a result of a belligerent 87* by Hugo Bradbury (157fps) in just 49 balls. Malmesbury were never in the hunt and were bowled out for 153. JNG 3-41 (84 fps) and Chris Mann 2-17 (50 fps) were the pick of the bowlers.
The 2s report comes this week from our “out of county correspondent” Toby Nightingale.
Having travelled the 49 miles from Winsley to the ground of Coastal Cobras in Berkshire (for those who don’t know this is not in Wiltshire), the 2s lost the toss and were asked to field. So putting on their non-spiked trainers, they headed out to the beautifully kept artificial wicket with its wonky stumps (see below image) to begin their fielding with the thrum of the M4 a constant delight.
Opening bowlers Pete Merrell and Qayoum Abdul (65fps) both took a wicket each which included Braxton Gonsalves who last week scored 160. Chris Tebb took a wicket on his league debut and Luke Walker chipped in with a wicket as well. Neil Hussey and Qayoum both took excellent catches in the deep while Michael Sherring (52fps) channelled his inner Simone Biles for an excellent one-handed diving catch. Toby Nightingale (64fps) came on late and took 3 wickets while Qayoum came back for a second spell and took another three wickets. Cobra finished on 192.
No one found scoring easy on a very up-and-down wicket. Simon Richards top scored with a determined 54 having taken inspiration from one of his offspring playing in the ones! Unfortunately, no one was able to stay with Simon long enough to threaten Cobra’s total. With the win out of reach, Toby and Erica shared a last wicket stand of 38 to take the score from 114 to 152 and salvage two extra batting points.
The team are looking forward to another road trip to Berkshire again next week to play on Astro again- Fun times!
The 3rd XI had a very exciting win against Corsham 4ths at the ‘Southwick Oval’. Winsley batted first and lost early wickets. However, Ollie Howe 53 found good partners in Davie Melton 20 and Chris Hole 30 to enable a final score of 153. Defending a low total was never going to be easy but two fine catches from Oli Howe (113fps) and John Iles 4-25 (99fps) help turn the tide. At 126-9it looked all over. However an obdurate last wicket stand was finally broken by John Iles with Corsham just 9 runs short. Qadeem Ahmadzai had a good all round day 8*, 2 catches and 2-12 (73fps).
The 4ths were well beaten at Sheldon school. Chippenham 5ths 334-5 and Winsley 123-8 in their 40 overs. James Cargill top scored with 65 runs (80fps)
The women's side had a rest week in the WEPL this week.
The week 2 leaderboard is:
Top 5 improving teams of the week:
Team of the week:
This team would have scored 1019 points and would have cost 59 units. With Freddie Richards as captain, it would have scored 1191 points.
League position graph:
Next week’s fixtures are:
Freddie Richards makes the first entry onto this year's honours board
All the best,
Martyn and Ben
