The Cryptics turned up at the beautiful Hogs ground at Warnford in optimistic mood off the back of some good wins in the Southern Tour, and at Highclere and Ditchling. Rain in the South prompted an early call from Mike Stafford to the Skipper questioning whether the game was going ahead, which was swiftly rebuffed, although he did have everything crossed on the way to the ground with heavy cloud cover and the possibility of rain in the offing. The strip was green, the outfield even greener - it felt like a 'bowl' sort of a morning, clarified by sage advice from incumbent scorer and ex (due to injury) skipper Paul Armstrong. Cricket is indeed an extraordinary game and some days (often not) it just all goes in the right direction....Skipper called correctly, we bowled, the bowlers put their foot down and never let up, Mike Stafford took a blinder at 2nd slip for the first wicket and we never looked back. It was one of the most controlled and accurate bowling/fielding performances I've seen from the Cryptics in some years, in large part thanks to the Wiltshire Youth Policy - the under-18s bagged 8 of the wickets!

Henry Caruana and Ollie Sadler, both new faces to the Cryptics bowled beautifully from the start. They exploited the conditions getting plenty of movement, and although they struggled to control the odd ball they did not get disheartened and kept the batters under plenty of pressure throughout. Henry bowled with good pace, getting some balls up to head hight and clearly unsettled the openers and was duly rewarded with a snick to 2nd slip where Mike Stafford snaffled an absolute beauty low to his right - into his 70s Mike is an incredible all round cricketer and a great example to all of us! Henry bowled enough wicket taking balls to feel unlucky not to have got more than his one, but the pressure he applied at his end really helped Ollie Sadler, bowling full and moving the ball both ways, to pick up wickets throughout his spell at the other end. Ollie bowled magnificently and with match figures of 6-3-9-4, including two absolute snorters clean bowled, richly deserved the match ball to put in his cabinet! With over restrictions applying to our younger players a change in bowling at both ends was needed, but if the Hogs thought some easy runs were coming with a change to spin they were sorely mistaken! Paul massey bowling very tight wicket to wicket off spin, was miserly for his 1 for 12 off 9 overs, his 1 wicket well deserved with a nick and good catch from Jason Doole standing up. At the other end Charlie Carroll bowling mostly left arm orthodox, but mixing his pace and flight with some excellent left arm wrist spin looked like getting a wicket pretty much every over. Indeed the 6th wicket to fall was purely down to pressure from the two spinners - no runs to be had a classic 'yes, no' with a ball to Paul at short fine leg, a slip from one batter and a run out - on the face of it poor calling/bad luck from the Hogs but actually all due to great pressure from the bowlers. The Hogs dug in at this point for the 9th wicket and had eked out a 30 odd run partnership, but the fact that one batter took 73 balls to get to 8 showed the discipline from the spin pairing. But change was needed, the evergreen Mike Stafford came on to give Paul some rest and Charlie who had had zero luck at this point then got his rewards with 3 quick wickets, 2 bowled and one good nick taken by keeper Doole, with the Hogs losing their last 3 wickets for 1 run. His 3-13 off 11.3 overs well deserved given the control and variation he showed. Hogs 83 all out. An outstanding bowling performance, and ably backed up with some excellent (some might say surprisingly 'un-Cryptics like') fielding! Although the Wiltshire Juniors no doubt helped with this (!) 3 excellent catches standing up from  Jason (plus a stumping that never was...), a very good catch at mid-off from Sam and the aforementioned catch from Mike at 2nd slip were all key to maintaining pressure through the innings. 

A few spots or rain threatened but after a leisurely lunch the Cryptics went about the run chase. The wicket continued to offer something for the bowlers, with the odd variable bounce and some movement, and the Hogs opening pair of Croft and Knight bowled with decent pace and control and deserved to have us 18-2 with both Steve Sadler and Jason Doole nicking off to the keeper. Although still strong favourites  a couple more wickets at this point may have caused a few nerves in the dressing room! But Sam Elstone continued to look totally in control, scoring regularly all around the park and punishing anything either too full or straight on his pads, and at the other end Eoin Simpkins firmed up the chase with strong defence and some good scoring shots, and with a 3rd wicket partnership to 55 the game was pretty much home and hosed. it was a surprise when Eoin got out, as he was looking increasingly comfortable, so it was left to skipper Walker to keep one end tidy while Sam accelerated us to victory. Sam's 57 off 64 balls was as classy as we've come to expect from him, but was worth more given a tricky pitch and the overheads. 

An excellent win for the Cryptics - well done all!