First game, 2nd week and we were up against the men from Merthyr.

Little Felix, standing in for the skipper (who had to go home to collect the book!!) won the toss and invited Ron Walton to bat first.

The Gumpster and Dusty White were given the new ball and were extremely stingy in the runs department and both contributed superbly to Hoovers' slow start. The skipper managed to extract a bite from Little Felix in the 2nd over of the innings when commenting on Lusardi's wicket keeping ability, the little one responded with a "Oh let me get into it first Shelts!!!" aside it was a fine display of keeping from the little one who, according to the scorebook let no byes through.

Gumpy dismissed their opener when the batsman chased a short and wide delivery and hit it straight to Edward Shovelhands (Rhodri) at point, who took a comfortable catch. The Gumpster was asked to take a break having bowled 6 superb overs and on came The Bobster who produced an absolute snorter of a yorker, with his 5th ball and their No 3 was on his way. Hoovers struggled to get anything going and Bob Matthews picked up another 2 wickets including an LBW with the last ball before drinks which passed both Mr Ebdon and Mr Matthews himself by and they were totally unaware that the wicket had fallen until informed by the skipper (bring back Jason Gwilt please......)

Bobby was the most expensive of all the bowlers and he went for a stingy 15 off 7 overs.

I couldn't resist getting in on the act and bowled the Hoovers No 6 with a superb delivery, I very unselfishly took myself off after 3 overs and tossed the ball to Dr Rowe who winded himself whilst taking a caught and bowled.

Hoovers were eventually dismissed in the 36th over when their No 11 held out to Lee Bray at cover off Marlboro Watkins.

An early tea was taken and then the Blackwood openers Tom Darling and Gavin Jones (yes you are reading that correctly) strode out to bat. A few lusty blows later and Gumpy was walking back having knocked up a quick 16 and impressed all concerned with his patience and may hold onto the opener's job (well if he has to go to work on a Saturday evening again he might!!!). Tom Darling followed Gumpy in the next over but all was not lost as Shovelhands and Lee Bray, who capped a superb all round performance, quickly knocked off the remaining runs and it was all wrapped up by 5pm with an excellent 8 wicket victory.

There will be harder games to come I'm sure but it was a superb performance by the bowlers, an outstanding display in the field by everyone (Tom Darling was brilliant at backward square leg despite the ball seemingly following him around!!) and well done to the batsmen who quickly achieved the small target on a pitch which definitely helped the bowlers.

I think I'll have to get Adam to toss up all the time now!!

MOTM - Too close to call between Lee Bray and Bobby Matthews
TFC - Not applicable as everyone contributed

lets build on this chaps

Over and Out

Shelts

A Shelton (c)
A Lusardi (wk)
M Ebdon
R Matthews
T Watkins
L Bray
A White *
T Darling *
K Rowe *
G Jones
R Evans *

Meet 12:30

Players with an * meet at ground for an hour at 9:30am to help on the ground

Well here we are again boys new season and it looks like a repeat of last year with the first game being called off due to a waterlogged ground.

Weather looks set fair for this Saturday though although the ground is still a tad wet as those of you that turned up last night to help put the nets up will testify (oh sorry it was just Mr Ebdon and my goodself that were there!!!)

I'm hoping that we can have a successful season this year. We will be as strong as ever from a bowling perspective - hopefully Gumpy will show his usual form (but not too much or he'll be in the 1s!!!).

We should also be stronger in the batting department this year, despite the loss of Tom Baker to the 1st Team, the previous first team wicket keeper will come in and be just as effective as Tom was in the 2s ;-) Mr Ebdon has also retired from 1st team duties and will this year be plying his trade in the rags so we should get some stability in the middle order this season, something that was badly lacking last year. The Italian Stallion, Little Felix is also making a long awaited comeback this year and I hope he can show the same form as he did in his one appearance last year at Pontypridd.

With the continued progress of the young pups (thanks to Dirk's nurturing in the 3s) a bare minimum this season is to improve on our league position of last year and who knows, with the wind behind us and a smidgen of luck we could achieve lofty heights.

Training as usual this Thursday at 6pm, followed by selection. The team will be posted on the blog shortly after.

Good luck to Nelly and Dirk with their respective teams and lets hope for a drier summer

Shelts

A below par performance and losing the toss contributed to a crushing defeat for the 2s away to Pontypridd on a baking hot day at Ponty Park.

Despite the return to action of Adam "Little Felix" Lusardi, Pontypridd scored 336-4 in their 50 overs with no Blackwood bowler excelling themselves and a disappointing fielding display with a number of dropped catches contributed to that total

In reply, the 'wood could only muster 141 all out off 27.5 overs, deciding to go for it and live by the sword die by the sword rather than attempt to bat out the 50 overs and with the score at one stage of 34-2 off just 4 overs, anything looked possible but unfortunately no large partnerships were made and that was pretty much that, despite the best efforts of Lusardi (35) looking like he had never been away, Kieran Rowe (26), possibly playing his last game for Blackwood before starting his medical career, Tom Darling (24) playing a brutal innings and Tom Watkins (18) it was not going to be and Pontypridd cruised to a comfortable win.

My reflections on the season were that we achieved our goal of staying in Division 1 but it could have been so much better as we lost two games (Newport Fugitives and Whitchurch) when we really were in position to win the game.

We only really had one bad day at the office from a bowling point of view and that was the last game as I would discount the first two matches as we did not have a particularly strong team out but batting has let us down most of the year and we have not scored anywhere near enough runs. Hopefully that can be rectified next season as Adam has promised the 2s a full season and Martin Ebdon announcing he is retiring from the 1s and he too will commit himself to a full season in the 2s. If we can also get Matty Evans and Marc Potter playing regularly too, in addition to the younger lads developing even further and with the 1st team hopefully attracting some new batsmen for next year then perhaps next season we can set our sites a little higher

Please feel free to comment if you have anything to add

Shelts

1. A Shelton (c)
2. A Lusardi (wk)
3. S Gameson
4. J Gwilt
5. C Gwilt
6. G Jones
7. K Rowe
8. T Watkins
9. T Darling
10. R Evans
11. Rob Matthews

12th Man - Ashley White

Meet at 11:45am as its a 1pm start