By Geoff Moore, on September 6th, 2009
Southam 203 all out, Fillongley 204-5
We went into our last home league game knowing that we could still be relegated, although this would require lots of things to go against us. Once again we won the toss and put the opposition in, even though we were very short on bowling today. Surely with our top seven batters in the team and against opposition we were certainly capable of beating it was time to bat?
Goatley and Bramley made a positive start for Southam. Bramley fell to an excellent catch from Ben Fleming but that was our only success in the first 20 overs. Last week at Handsworth the lack of a spin option hurt us badly. Today, Tom Nightingale was not supposed to be fit to bowl, but he did and his introduction led to the breakthrough. In his second over first Goatley then No3 Horsley holed out to Steve Gardner. Three more wickets had Southam at 116-6 in 30 overs, with Tom having taken 5-15. Southam did very well to recover to 203 all out in 49 overs. Preston made 33 and tail enders batted round him to good effect. Tom ended up bowling his full 15 overs allocation and took 7-45.
We lost Ben Fleming in the first over, then Reg (who had been taken off his life support machine especially for this game) fell with the score at 22. Phil Hammond, batting at 3 today, and Aaron Blackmore then put on 87 for the third wicket in good time to take us more than halfway to the target. A straightforward task then became anything but when Tom Nightingale and Andy Carty were out for ducks and Tom Barber joined Azza with 76 needed. By this time Azza was scoring very quickly and he moved smoothly on to an excellent 102 not out off 89 balls (14×4, 1×6). Tom Barber also batted impressively for 37 not out off only 33 balls with eight fours. We got to the target with 13 overs to spare.
It’s now certain that two Warwickshire teams (Aston Unity and either Olton & WW or Moseley Ashfield) are going to be relegated from the Birmingham League. The knock on means three go down from the Warwickshire Premier. Pickwick and Southam are long gone but who else? Prior to yesterday I had assumed that if a third team went down it would be Warwick, but their improvement (four wins on the trot) has changed things. Amazingly it looks like the losers of next weeks game between Bedworth and Solihull will go down! When Bedworth beat Bablake on July 18th they went top of the league. Three weeks earlier and with ten games played Solihull were top.
At the top Handsworth nearly lost to Kings Heath while Bablake got 24 points. Handworth lead by two points and host Kenilwoth (11 points behind) in their last game. Bablake are home to Atherstone who are pretty well out of it now.
