It was blood, muck and bullets on Saturday against Devonshire a emergency fixture as three Park players got injured. Skip Fowdy put the opposition into bat on a warm day. Dave and Craig Partridge opened the bowling and both started well as normal, Craig bowling fast as normal and Dave cutting the ball. Craig was first to break the ice as he had one of the openers out caught in gully, and then he was on a hatrick having the next batsman caught for a golden by Jim Flood in the slips. Craig ended up with 2/8 off 7 overs. Meanwhile at the other end Dave was unlucky not to take any wickets in his spell with one batsman in particular edging everything but not to fielders in a Lofty style innings, but we couldn't get him out early and he went on as Lofty often did and scored a 50 with Dave having figures of 0/37 off 9. John Ling replaced Craig and at the other end Bill Partridge replaced Dave and that's when the action started. We had a slight drizzle of rain and everything turned slippery and started skidding through.
All was well until Ricky Hawkins decided to head the ball while he was keeping and collapsed in a heap on the floor with blood gushing from his wound. A ambulance was called and Ricky match was over, while Ricky was in the recovery position a few of the lads decided to have a fag and discuss the tactics of the match while poor Ricky was in pain with no sympathy from any of the lads. It took 35mins to clear Ricky in the ambulance which decided to divert with a U-turn across the wicket!! So both skippers came to some arrangement where as they would bat on till there time and Park would have 50mins and 20 overs. So back to the match, Sean Pritchard took over behind the sticks (with helmet) and Lingo carried on bowling finishing with figures of 0/34 but at the other end Bill was knocking them over like Ali used to do in his prime taking out three batsmen with figures of 3/35 off 9 overs. Devonshire were now hitting some fine shots after starting very sluggish. Paul Thompson came on for Lingo but after telling the skipper in midweek that he has found out his problem with full tosses he dually went for 27 runs in 2 overs. It was a bit unfortunate for Thomo as the skippers game plan was ruined he came on at a very bad time. So Devonshire finished with 162/6 and other wicket was a runout.
So Al Horton and Dave Fletcher opened the batting but in the first over the second injury occurred when Al went down like Divine Brown and was hit by a beamer just under the heart. Alan went off for a rest with Sean (who by now was absolutely shaking like a rattlesnake) came in wearing a helmet. Fletch started to hit some great shots until he decided to leave one which took out his off stump, although he did get us off to fine start scoring 22. Al came back in with Skip Fowdy as his runner. Alan and Sean started off slowly but then started to hit some fine shots with Park needing seven an over. Al finally got bowled for 34 but by this time Skip Fowdy had pulled his calf muscle (or as he thought at the time but is actually a torn tendon and should be out for the rest of the season) but came in at No-4 with a runner would you believe in the shape of Thomo!!!! so the runner had a runner and that was the final injury. At one stage Sean and the skipper needed 90 off 10 overs but Sean who by now was clattering the ball all over the place had scored his first fifty and was on form. In the last over we needed seven which we got in the first three balls and won by 8 wickets, Sean scoring 74 n/o and the Skipper getting 15 n/o to secure a fine victory which was well deserved in the end considering at times we looked like we were not going to make it.
Sean Pritchard super 74 n/o although he had a bad start.