On a heavy day, that had all the portents for a heavy downpour that fortunately never occurred, Eastons lined up to face Stebbing, a regular fellow village opposition. Eastons, fielding a similarly depleted bowling attack to last week, won the toss and elected to bat first.
Eastons got off to their, increasingly characteristic, steady start. The run rate was a little under par, but the irregular bounce of the pitch, the heavy weather and the accuracy and pace of the Stebbing opening bowlers accounted for a large part of this. Again, the Eastons batting innings told two stories. The bulk of the batting order failed to build on reasonable starts. The exception, once again, was Carlsberg with a second 50 in a row for the club. Carlsberg was a little nervous and shaky to begin with, however he played through this and fully capitalised on the weak Stebbing spin bowling, punishing the loose, over or under pitched ball with a withering display of drives and cuts. Eastons finished on 124 ao, feeling disappointed with their failure to really utilise the weaker parts of the oppositions bowling.
The Eastons fielding innings was a story of dropped catches. A number of chances, ranging from the difficult reach away from the body to the skied, lobbing, spinning chance all dropped from the hands of the increasingly frustrated Eastons fielders and bowlers. Mimmack had one of the Stebbing openers LBW, with Corns having their next bat caught at long on. Apart from that, Stebbing sailed to a comfortable victory, and left Eastons ruing their dropped chances.
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