RCC 2s lose to Hampton Hill by 7 wickets

Inserted again, RCC made an excellent fist of batting in picturesque Bushey Park by putting a seemingly competitive score on the board. For the third game in a row the RCC innings was built around a wonderful innings by Marc Moderegger (98). Moderegger is currently in the form of his life, playing within himself, batting with discipline and hitting predominantly straight and along the ground. A self-less run out to push the score along before the imminent declaration finally did for him. In all honesty, a run out was the only way that Moderegger looked like getting out, such was his mastery of the Hampton Hill bowling attack.

It was left to the remainder of the RCC batting order to fit around Mods and a number of pleasing cameos from Andrew MacLeod (20) and Andre Stevenson (25*) both helped to push the RCC score above 200 for the first time this season.

Hampton Hill have based their success this year around a bludgeoning pair of openers who seem to know only one way to play. Unfortunately for RCC, the opening batters fired again and punished wayward bowling for 6 after massive 6. It was only a straight ball from Ross Cameron (3 for 70) that finally removed the Hampton Hill destroyer once he had scored 130 with 14 fours and 9 sixes. By that point the game had well and truly been taken away from Roehampton and getting over the finish line was a formality for Hampton Hill.

Annoyingly, beyond the big hitters, (and the skipper stands to be corrected on this one) there really didn’t seem to be much to come from the Hampton Hill batting order. But that, as they say, is cricket and one of those things that we will never know! Catches, opportunities, half-chances, didn’t quite go Roehampton’s way. Skied chances fell between fielders and though no chances were dropped maybe RCC didn’t quite have the inner belief that they could remove the Obelix-like Hampton Hill openers.

More magic potion required next week. The disappointing loss dropped us to 7th in the league, however as the two top teams didn't win this week either, the difference to the top is still only 24 points.

Man of the match – Marc Moderegger.
(report by Hemish Gunasekara)