Gillingham given lesson in spin before narrowly mastering Park

A report by Sam Peters, former cricket correspondent, Daily Star (and other papers, honestly) on FPCC v Gillingham Schoolmasters at home on Thursday 9 May)

A delivery for the ages from Charlie Prior and a sensational late spell from Archie Thornton-Berry were not enough to prevent Gillingham Masters finishing top of the class at Fonthill Park on Thursday night (9 May).

Chasing 99 from 20 overs, the visitors were seemingly cruising to victory with their opener ‘Bam Bam’ Bignell clubbing his way to 32, allied to some sloppy fielding from the home side, seeing Gillingham to 78-2 with six overs remaining.

But the surprise introduction of Thornton-Berry, something of an unknown quantity with the ball before this game, saw the game turned on its head, as he took three wickets for three runs from three overs in a spell of flat left-arm spin bowling which would have made the late Derek Underwood proud.

Bignell was bamboozled, along with the opposition’s skipper and big hitting No4 as the young Army officer made Gillingham stand firmly to attention.  Deadly Thornton-Berry found an accomplice assassin in young Prior, who produced a fizzing leg spin delivery reminiscent of Shane Warne’s dismissal of Mike Gatting at Old Trafford in 1993 to get rid of Gillingham’s dangerous No5.

The look of bamboozlement on the batsman’s face as he departed the fray was also reminiscent of Gatting, whose dismissal at the hands of Warne will now surely be lost in the annals of time as Prior takes ownership of potentially the greatest leg spin dismissal ever.  Well, at least within a two-mile radius of Tisbury.

Perhaps more importantly, Gillingham had slipped from a comfortable 78-2 to a decidedly uncomfortable 96-6 in the space of six calamitous overs.   With three runs still required, responsibility for the final over fell to the bespectacled Dan Brickell.

With the light fading and hearts pumping, several of them unassisted by pace-makers, the experienced medium pacer showed nerves of steel to take a wicket with his first ball.

The Park sensed blood and with wickets tumbling faster than you could say “please Gillingham do stop putting pressure on your own umpires to give wides, it really isn’t cricket”  the visitors had to dig deep.

And so they did.  Well, deep enough to plant a reasonable sized geranium plant at least. Certainly, deep enough to see off Park.

A dot ball from ice-cold Brickell was followed by four byes which saw the visitors claim victory by three wickets with three balls to spare.

But, in truth, this was a triumph in every other sense for Fonthill Park’s new kings of spin; arise Messrs Prior and Thornton-Berry.

Earlier, Park’s innings, which at one point teetered on the brink at 14-3 from four overs, was built around a slightly rusty 40 from captain ‘sicknote’ Sam Peters, playing his first game in a year following a broken foot, while No4 Simon Prior chipped in with a handy 19 from 24 balls.

Tim Jones, literally minutes after clambering out of the River Avon, where he had been collecting samples of invertebrates, showed his own backbone with 16 not out from 25 balls before having the good sense to run out Peters from the penultimate ball, and in doing so denying him the ‘red inker’ he so obviously craved.

All in all, this was a fun fixture played (largely) in good spirit and the first of three matches to be played in three days at our most bucolic of grounds.

Indeed, with so many threes on show, one half expected the great Graham Gooch himself to descend to thank Mark for enabling the fixture with his tireless groundwork, Molly for scoring on the new tablet and Tim Jones for running the bar after running out Peters.

If the weekend’s two remaining fixtures prove half as entertaining, we are in for a sporting bonanza.

One thing is for certain, we will not see a delivery as rip-snortingly good as Prior’s again this season or a spell as deadly as Thornton-Berry’s.

If Shane Warne and Derek Underwood were watching this from above, as surely they must have been, they can only have been impressed by Fonthill’s very own kings of spin.