The 2018 cricket season ended for Midsomer Norton’s senior sides last weekend, but for the First XI the season came to a much more abrupt and disappointing end than anyone at the club could have predicted.
The eight wicket defeat to Lansdown in the previous match had seen Midsomer Norton outplayed by the side at the top of the table, but the manner of last Saturday’s defeat to a team just above them in the league is much harder to explain.
The visitors won the toss and put Midsomer Norton in to bat. Opener, Nick Cox, was dismissed without scoring – and what followed was cricketing carnage. Cox’s opening partner, Alex Lear, was next to go at 15–2 and a procession began which saw Norton’s last nine wickets fall for nine runs. Norton were all out for 24 in less than fifteen overs. Bishopston’s New Zealander, Jack Hunter, took seven wickets for six runs and Ryan Adams took 3–17. Midsomer Norton’s batting has under-performed this season but few present, players or spectators, were expecting a batting performance like this.
Bishopston were batting within an hour of the start of the game and lost their first two wickets without scoring, the first run-out following a direct hit by Hashan Gunathilaka. At 8–3, it looked like Bishopston were determined to make a game of it but they lost no more wickets and the match was over soon after 2 p.m.
Despite the heavy defeat, Norton slipped just one place in the table to finish the season in seventh place, but the manner of this defeat in the last game of the season, will not provide much
comfort to players and members over the autumn and winter months to come.
Charlie Matthews