Rich pickings as Tony gets his ton

The rarity of a hot, sunny day brought out the best of both teams in the first leg of a double header weekend for the Gents. What would appear on paper to have been a routine Gents win was at times anything but, and they were again thankful for the depth of their batting line up.

Sanjay chose to bat and openers Carroll and Wahed proceeded to 33 without undue mishap against the impressive combination of Wright's pace and Cloette's seamers. Lloyd's unfortunate dismissal to a 'Fairfield Shooter' precipitated something of a collapse - Husain and Sanjay fell to excellent deliveries and Hemin to another 'FS'. When Carroll's steady 28 was terminated, the Gents were in some trouble at 65-5. The recovery was inspired by Gilkes (62), looking relaxed and confident at number 6 after his early season traumas. With controlled aggression he added 32 with Buck and 46 with Toft to help the Gents reach the relatively dizzy heights of 176-8 at half time.

The Gents attack was to prove too much for the mostly inexperienced Enterprise batsmen, however the talented Cloette provided a scare by hitting four powerful boundaries in rapid succession and looking more than capable of big runs. Indeed it took an unusual, but brilliant dismissal to stop him: Husain's delivery was driven straight back to him at head height, the bowler reacting superbly to get a hand on it. The ball was still travelling at high pace when the wrong-footed Wahed at straight-ish mid off dived to take a marvellous one handed catch.

The denouement was most notable for Tony Buck's 99th and 100th Gents wickets off successive balls, to the delight of his team mates. After captain Dimond's unlucky LBW, keeper Fitzgerald hit 33 late on to give the score some respectability.

Further positives for the Gents were the debuts of youngsters Desai and Espire who showed their ability during brief cameos. Hopefully we will see more of them in future.