St Cross hosted one of the stronger Sunday teams on the circuit, Pyestock CC, on the motorway otherwise known as St Cross Pitch 2 last Sunday.

Ram won the toss and chose to bat, opting to open up with two talented U16s, Nav Dubey and Jamie Gearing. They got off to a flyer, racing to 141 for no wicket off 18 overs. Despite the best efforts of the Pyestock bowlers, Nav and Jamie were unflappable, and regularly found the boundary all around the ground. Nav then fell for a dominant 73, bringing the brother of Jamie, Sam Gearing to the crease. Sam continued the momentum, running well with Jamie and supporting him on his way to his first ever century. An utterly brilliant and nerveless innings, exhibiting a range of textbook shots, most notably the cover drive and the pull shot. Soon after Jamie's retirement, Sam fell for 41, and after that point, quickfire contributions from Adeel Raja, Abdul Asmari and Rishi Thareendra pushed St Cross up to a seemingly unreachable overall score of 337.

Morale seemed to be low among the Pyestock players at tea, but in the second innings they came out with intent to chase all 338 of the runs. Rishi bowled fiercely up front and picked up a wicket in a very economical 7 over spell, whilst at the other end, Pyestock opener Ben Armes batted aggressively and took the other bowlers down. Adeel managed to pick up a wicket, but this brought Pyestock no.4, Ben Bromley, to the crease. These two batters played with no fear and consistently found the boundary, pushing Pyestock up to a place of real contention, needing roughly 120 off the last 12 overs. Some crafty leg spin from Nav picked up three wickets at a perfect time, including the two dangerous batsmen for 100 each. But the Pyestock middle order continued to attack the St Cross bowlers and capitalise on various mistakes in the field. At this point, the atmosphere was very tense as Pyestock required 18 off the last 2 overs to win. Sam bowled a tight over of stump to stump medium pace, only going for one boundary and ten runs off the penultimate over, meaning Jamie was left to defend 8 off the last over with his offspin. The first 4 balls were tight and only went for a collection of singles and twos, leaving Pyestock 4 to win off 2 balls. Unfortunately, on the penultimate ball, a well-executed yorker managed to find an edge and went all the way through for 4, allowing Pyestock to take the match in thrilling circumstances with two wickets remaining.

Despite the gutting loss, it is not often nearly 700 runs are scored in 40 overs. It is a match that will live long in the memory of all those involved, I'm sure, and the rematch next year promises to be another thrilling encounter.