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A fantastic victory over High Halstow sealed a National Village Cup quarter final birth for Bentley for the first time in their history on a balmy Sunday afternoon.

With a crowd approaching 200, skipper Chris Pether won the toss and did not hesitate in electing to bat. However, Donnelly and in particular Staple immediately had the Johnson brothers under pressure from the start. Accurate bowling meant that the ball was very hard to get away early on, and both did well to repel the early threat of the new ball. Eventually, Gavin Johnson was dismissed by a catch at short cover, while Tom was caught at slip by the probing Staple to leave Bentley 25/2. With Steve Coleman and Pether now at the crease, the emphasis was very much on seeing off the opening spells with no more damage and they built a useful partnership of 44 before Coleman was dismissed LBW in Donnelly‘s last over.

This brought Damien Larrett to the crease, and he and Pether began a match defining partnership. Slow at first, they picked up the tempo as time went on and the captain reached his 50 off 67 balls. Just as he looked like he was really beginning to dominate, he thumped a drive straight down long off’s throat and departed for . What followed was an Exhibit A “Classic Bentley Collapse” as wickets tumbled at regular intervals, especially to Dockway who picked up 5/54 from the road end. In fear of being left stranded, Larrett was bowled for 40 with the score on 181/9 as Bentley eventually subsided to 186 all out. While this was at least a par score on a sporting track, it was certainly 20 runs short of what they would have hoped for at the 30 over mark.

With the game in the balance, High Halstow looked to dominate early through the dangerous looking Smith. Despite some powerful boundaries, he found scoring opportunities few and far between against the swing and seam movement of ever-unlucky Joe Wilson, while Matt Coleman removed Sibley for 3 at the other end.

Finally, Wilson’s patience and consistency was rewarded as he picked up Smith and Trigg, the former with a peach of a delivery. From here, the pressure really began to build, and with the run rate required climbing the batsmen struggled to find the boundary as regularly as was required. When Coleman (1/44) and Wilson (2/17) finished their spells, it was clear that something had to give. After a couple of pacey overs from Nick Smith, the plan changed to taking the pace off the ball with left armers Glen Swinney and Gavin Hammond bowling in tandem. With the accurate spinners turning the screw, Bentley began to chip away with important wickets.

While the match had by now begun to swing towards Bentley, a partnership between Brumbaugh and Donnelly looked like it might just revive Halstow from the brink. It was only when Tom Johnson replaced Swinney that the game was sealed. His first ball jagged away from Brumbaugh, but his thickish edge would have rolled away to the third man boundary 9 times out of 10. This time, keeper Laurence Pulford pulled out a spectacular one-handed catch to the delight of the home crowd, and from here Bentley romped to a 52 run victory with Johnson snaring 3/12 and Hammond finishing with 3/14.

For the match scorecard, click here

A few massive thank yous – to Shelagh, Martin, Sharon and the assorted WAGs for doing the teas, to everyone who did a stint behind the bar, to Cyril for an as usual exemplary 80 overs of scoring, to Brian, Coral and all on the barbeque and to every single person who came to support us in what was a pretty special day at Coxtie Green Road. I think I speak for all the players when I say that Sunday was one of the best days of my cricketing “career”, and it was nice to share it with so many people.

One final thanks to High Halstow, who proved to be great opposition both on the field and in the bar where they certainly gave us a run for our money in the drinking stakes! Good luck for the rest of the season guys.