Smiling through: But Sean Carmody’s men put in the worst performance this year
The Thirds slumped to a heavy defeat against Kings Langley II as they put in their most disappointing performance of the season.
They were skittled for just 86 as they made a dreadful fist of chasing the 207-9 set by the visitors.
No one was able to build a decent partnership, which, coupled with some poor shot selection, meant Sean Carmody’s men were never seriously in the hunt.
Earlier, they had fielded and bowled solidly to restrict the in-form Kings Langley side, who are sitting third in the league.
Carmody kept the lid on the scoring with a niggardly opening spell of seven overs for just 10 runs and induced a wild slash which went high in the air to cover to claim the first wicket.
Michael Carter returning to league action after more than two years, took three wickets, including one with his second ball which turned and took the glove.
Ian Pickering got through a full quota of 15 tidy overs, finishing with 3-35, to go with three catches in the innings.
Although they fielded one of their strongest batting line-ups of the season none of the batsmen got on top of the sort of solid, steady attack which shouldn’t really trouble teams at this level.
Top-scorer Archie Stephens (16) cracked four lovely boundaries before chipping to mid-off, while Danny Digweed (13), Nick English (12), Pickering (15) and Ian Woods (14) all looked comfortable before falling to similarly ill-judged shots.
