In his last match for Olton before moving to Cornwall, Alan George hit a splendid 94 not out on Saturday, just missing out on what would have been a well-deserved valedictory century in the 2s' home defeat against Barnt Green. There were also runs for Callum Lamb (83) as the third XI returned to winning ways, and milestones galore again in the 4s, with a century for Pete Middleditch (congratulations Pete!), 98 for Pete Suthons, and another 5-wicket haul for Nick Thompson in the victory over Ansley Sports.

Al's carefully compiled and nicely paced innings formed the backbone of the 2nd XI's challenging total of 237 for 6 from 50 overs. Gareth Stratford provided excellent support with a robust 51, and the talented Dan Ceillam hammered 65 from 54 balls after a difficult start against a strong Barnt Green attack.

Al George just missed out on a century after two surprise dot balls in the final over. For some reason, Paver's spectacular dive to complete two runs to keep Al on strike was the cause of much mirth among his team-mates - and in the scorebox (thanks Phil!).

Barnt Green's reply got under way at a rattling pace, and despite battling hard all the way and securing important wickets at regular intervals, Olton's bowlers and fielders were never really able to stem the flow of runs on a dry pitch with a lightning-fast outfield.

Having twisted his foot in a vain attempt to stop a boundary early in the innings, Paver hopped and hobbled up to the wicket to produce figures of 6-2-21-1, but was largely immobile in the field thereafter (insert your own joke here).

Gareth Stratford and Callum Reilly both returned for combative second spells, and had Olton secured that vital 6th wicket with Barnt Green still some way from victory at 165-5, things could have been different. Stand-in skipper James Eaton snared a key wicket, rotated his bowlers, and worked hard to keep the fielders upbeat, but difficult chances were missed, the wickets just would not come, and the visitors completed victory by five wickets with 5.2 overs to spare.

Al George enjoyed one last triumph just before the end, sending down six dot balls in the game's penultimate over to round off a fine contribution in his final match (he also took the first catch of the Barnt Green innings).

Further honourable mentions are due to Grumble for scoring; to Joe Gavin for working hard in the field - and taking a fine juggled catch on the boundary - as a last-minute sub; to Gareth Stratford for his fine fielding and encouragement; and to Squeak for dealing so pithily and concisely with comments from beyond the boundary. And finally, best wishes to Al for his move to the South-West.

Kennedy Paver - 04/07/2010

Congratulations to the Sunday 2nd XI and their skipper James Neale, who have won their WSL Div 2 league in fine style and are promoted to Div 1.

In their final game of the season, the 2nd XI were at home to Bablake Old Boys who batted first and notched up 197-10. Olton were pleased with that despite fielding that was not of the standard they may have wished.

Inspired captaincy led James Neale to open the bowling with spinner James Eaton which unsettled the early batsmen and he duly rewarded his captains faith by taking the firts wicket. Then late on Joe Moore, Dan neale and James himself took 2 wickets each.

Chasing, James opened with keeper Ali welch and senior player Phil Budd who got Olton under way with a nice steady start. Chris Chapman came in at 3, another of James's astute moves and was joined at 4 by 17 year George Wilkinson, once more unusually high in the batting order. Together they saw Olton virtually home when Chris was out for 69. George carried on and saw Olton grabb victory with an unbeaten 44.

The win saw Olton take top spot in the league and are promoted as champions for 2010. Well done the 2nd XI, emulating England who won the Ashes at around about the same time!

Phil Williams - 25/08/2009

James Neale's Sunday 2nd XI secured a pleasing win against Leamington at HQ on Sunday.

Opting to bowl first on a firm, dry track, Dobber dispensed with the Churchillian oratory in favour of a more familiar "stats-based" team talk which included a bewildering array of run rates and targets (the gist, I think, being that if we scored more runs than them, this being a Sunday, we would win).

The most pleasing aspect of the game was the way that Olton fought back from adversity on several occasions, the game swinging to and fro as first batsmen and then bowlers gained the upper hand.

All of Olton's bowlers fought back against some selective hitting (Paver in particular recovering from a disastrous start to slow down Leamington's main run scorers), and after an early rush of runs, a degree of control was gained which was never really lost. The fielding was tight, and the boundaries dried up altogether as Dobber marshalled the field expertly, with the drinks break intervening - as predicted - to bring a flurry of wickets. Daniel Neale was the pick of the attack with 3 for 40, while Dobber and Dave Pullin kept a lid on the scoring right to the end of the innings.

Opening the batting for Olton in reply to Leam's 198, Ali Welch and Drive-in battled hard to establish a solid platform (wickets in hand being another of James's key stats) against some accurate bowling. With the score lagging behind the run rate, James Neale, with support first from Tim Joiner and, in a brief and occasionally lively cameo, Dom Wilkinson, took the initiative, driving and pulling aggressively to put the bowlers off their length and spread the field. Once that had been achieved, a rate of at least 6 an over was possible, and when James was joined by brother Dan the win looked on.

James almost blotted his copybook by holing out to a neat catch in the gloom at long off by one of Leam's many youngsters with just six required - had he noticed that Dan was on 48 not out, and that a six would deprive his brother of the chance of a 50? Surely not. Dan was unperturbed, however, and struck the winning runs to end a fine personal performance with a well-deserved undefeated half century, Olton winning by four wickets with two overs to spare.

Honourable mentions are due to Dominic Wilkinson for the scary shorts, muscular entourage and dubious banter; to Ali Welch for his somewhat more educated style of banter from behind the stumps; to Windy Miller for spotting that Leam had fewer than the required number of fielders within the ring, and calling a no ball that drew an incredulous response from the opposition captain; and to Dobber for engineering an excellent win against a strong side.

The higher you go up the leagues the less likely there is of wins as sides play for the draw first and only chase a win when they are very confident of getting there.

So it was on Saturday at Olton where on a spanking good pitch Olton's 2nd XI crashed a good score of 272-5. Richard Stevens scored his maiden club century 102 not out with 14 fours. Along the way he was assisted by Dan Ceillam making his 2nd XI league debut with a confident 23 and the Nathan Myers in his usual hit the ball out of the ground manner made a rapid 91 with 15 fours and 2 sixes to take Olton to 272 -5

Well done to Richard.

Penn just werent interested and set out for the draw. And after they lost eight overs to a sudden shower, they wern't even interested in trying to get the 80% winning draw target and the game petered out to a boring draw with Penn 111-5 in 42 overs!

Enough said!

Phil Williams - 06/07/2009

Olton 2nd Xi were entertaining Newport's 2nd XI. In a low scoring match Newport were restricted to 146-9 off their 50 overs with Sunil taking 3-52 backed up by good bowling from Phil ceillam, Callum Reilly, skipper James Eaton and Chris Chapman.

Olton batted to the target and were never really stretched as they won on 147-4 in the 48th over with Paul Fitzgerald carrying his bat for 50 and Richard Stevens making 52.