After a glorious morning of sunshine the weather suddenly became very overcast and windy in the afternoon but it stayed dry so the match was on. Perfect conditions for swing bowlers, it's a shame we don't have any.

Captain Smith won the toss and elected to bat first as light would become an issue towards the end of the match so Davies and Fillingham strapped on their pads. It wasn't long before Fillingham was back in the pavilion, scoring a measly 1. Davies and Jo Smith dug in deep and managed to see out the opening bowlers but batting was hard going and scoring runs was even harder with every decent shot seeming to find a energetic Gremlin fielder. Davies was next man to go when he top edged the ball straight to mid wicket for 5, he was shortly followed by Jo Smith (6) but not before the Smith Bros doubled the HOB score with a partnership of 12.

With 3 wickets down and just 24 runs on the board a captains innings was needed and Jon Smith didn't disappoint. Some exquisite leg glances saw Smith register HOB's first boundaries of the day, backed up with some big hitting shots from the graceful Brown (one landing a foot short of the boundary) and some quick running between the wickets saw the HOB score slowly creep up to something you could almost call respectable. Smith finally fell for 20 when a full delivery saw the ball demolish his stumps. Brown followed Smith with an identical hit and miss for 18 and Warmington hit a quick fire 12 including the shot of the day when the ball was smashed back over the bowlers head for four.

With only a few deliveries left Clements and Ashford didn't have a chance to get going and finished unbeaten on 3 and 1 respectively. HOB's finished their innings on 81 for 6, a total that was probably 20 runs too short but at least it gave the bowlers something to defend.

HOB's tactics of trying to drain the life out of the opposition seemed to be working well when some very tight bowling from Lamshead, Brown, Jon Smith and Adams saw the visitors struggling for runs, scoring just 29 from 10 overs. The fielding was also looking sharp with the batsmen unwilling to take chances and refusing to run quick singles. Cryer, making his first appearance of the season, was unlucky with a couple of difficult catching chances, which on another day might have stuck.

The breakthrough came after a miss-field from Fillingham saw Lambshead score a direct hit onto the stumps from deep fine leg with a quite brilliant throw after the batsmen decided to take a quick single. HOB's were celebrating again shortly after when the other opener got a thick inside edge and played onto his stumps from a delivery from Jon Smith, Adams then claimed his first wicket of the day when Lambshead took a catch at mid-on. You could tell it was Lambshead's birthday when he also took his first wicket, the batsman gift-wrapping (sorry, I had to get that one in!) a simple catch to Fillingham from behind the stumps.

With the Gremlins struggling on 47 for 4 and with only 5 overs left HOB's could almost smell victory, sadly, this wasn't to be. After a couple of expensive overs, Gremlins needed just 12 runs from the final 12 balls. On came Jo Smith for the penultimate over, the last throw of the dice for captain Smith and with words of encouragement like 'just bowl like you have been in the nets' and 'pretend the batsman's Jon', the Old Boys just might have a chance. He was either going to bowl like a demon, take a couple of wickets or make the batsmen retire hurt, or get smashed around the park. Unfortunately, the latter happened and the game finished an over early, Gremlins winning by 6 wickets after they finished on 85 for 4.

Our first home match (although we played at the same venue last week) and our first defeat of the season but all in all, a good close game that could have gone either way with some great performances. Captain Smith was unlucky to miss out on the man of the match after he steadied the batting with a fantastic 20, a partnership with Brown of 36 and ending up with bowling figures of 1 for 12. The man of the match award goes to Lambshead after his super throw for the run out, his catch at mid-on (great facials) and bowling figures of 1 for 4 (3 of which were wides!). Oh, and it was his birthday.