Stand and Deliver

That is exactly what their number 4 bat did today.

Having got in amongst some wickets early on we all felt bouyed. We had defeated this side in the league cup at the beginning of the season and now were confident of making it 2 nil. When someone like that comes to the crease in that kind of form though you just have to accept it. He's a better player than us and I can honestly say that it was a pleasure to watch him bat. He couldn't be a nicer guy either which is why you find it hard to dislike him even though he is setting about our bowling attack with aplomb. A quickfire century was well deserved and he had pretty much dragged his side into a position that they should win from. As the same guy took the ball at the beginning of their innings you started to realise that without him the opposition would have been destroyed. His left arm spin was bowled with guile and after a 23 over spell his figures were pretty impressive.

We had been comprehensively beaten by one man. Cricket is funny like that, its one of the only sports I can think of that it is made up almost exclusively of one on one battles between individuals and yet can be affected in such a huge way by a strong team spirit and work ethic.