Following last season’s success the 2nd XI had hoped once again to be challenging at the top end of the table. Unfortunately this did not prove the cast as the 2nd XI we’re relegated from Division H.

With the first team missing several key players the 2nd XI was severely weakened with Shiraz Kayani, Kamran Rasheed, Jonty Rye and Samir Ahmed all moving up to play for the 1st XI. Losing batsmen of this calibre proved to be our downfall as the batsmen struggled all season, although playing on very damp wickets most weeks didn’t really help.

We started poorly with very heavy defeats away to Rolls Royce and Lambley. This was followed however with a good wins over Ruddington and Rolls Royce at home got the side back on track.

That was short lived though as we went on a run 5 defeats and also saw 3 games not played due to the horrible mid-season rain.

After an impressive win over Oxton thanks mostly to a last minute appearance from Arpan Desai in the 2nd XI we still though we could stay up. I’m afraid though defeats away at Gedling and Sherwood and Bramcote at home meant that we were relegated.

We did however have one more game, away at Ruddington, which we won, doing the double over them and actually finished the season on a high.

All in all it was not a great season for the 2nd team but the spirit that the guys showed was superb as ever. James Ayland, having not played for 5 years, has come into the side and picked up the wicketkeeping gloves and done very well with both bat and gloves. Ben Richardson having not played for 7 years came into the side and again showed some promise with the bat. Also the return of Mark Payne at the end of the season gave our batting a huge boost.

With the bowling Ben Chadwick was superb, Tom Harker seemed back to his best and also Richard McArdle had several very good bowling spells.

It was also good to be able to blood some of the younger Thrumpton Players with both Ben Clark and Ed Howick making their senior debuts.

Some of the best performaces were:

Dominic Thelen’s 81 at home against Ruddington
Joe Richardson’s 87 at home against Rolls Royce
Shiraz Kayani’s 79 also at home against Rolls Royce sharing a partnership of 168 with Joe.
Richard McArdle’s 5 for 12 away against West Bridgford British Legion
Ben Chadwick’s 4 for 22 away against West Bridgford British Legion
Nick Proverbs and My partnership of 70 at home against Lambley
Arpan Desai’s 92 at home against Oxton
Ben Richardson’s 43 at home against Oxton
Sam Charlton’s 4 for 19 at home against Oxton
Sam Charton’s 49 away at Gedling and Sherwood
Mark Payne’s 46 away at Ruddington

Thanks go to:

Dave O’Neal for all his umpiring along with Paul Burns and also Steve Pepper who helped out in Dave absence.

Steve Pick for scoring.

Thanks also to Cat Hutchins for doing the teas all season and also thanks to Steve Weightman for the preparing the wickets.