And so the Woodpeckers caravan rolled on to the beautiful Surrey Hills village of Chiddingfold, which on this gorgeous Sunday was subject to various road closures with diversions that seemed to lead to further blocked roads, caused by jack-knifed trailers. As the skipper had pulled the match start forward a number of us were caught up but even with the extended delays we all managed to congregate at the wonderful pitch by 1.30pm and got a start in just after. POB had won the toss and chosen to field and so with limited warm up the peckers strolled into the glorious Sunday sunshine.

With the test match on Sky Sports, the remining peckers not playing had a decision to make, watch the test or tune into YouTube to watch the Woodpeckers. By the end of this those that stayed watching the test will rue the missed opportunity to a superb ending to a wonderful day.

To those that don’t know the Chiddingfold pitch is small but perfectly formed on a bit of a hill, with roads on 2 sides and some houses and a school fairly close on another. The pavilion and nets taking the final end. 2 of the 4 boundaries this week were particularly close.

We opened with Felix rolling down hill, but within three balls The Cat was complaining to the skipper about the foot holes on the bowling crease, but he saw out a maiden over. This brought Snax to the game early bowling up hill with his lovely medium pace. He bowled well and deserved his spell of 4 overs keeping things tight. This bought Lav on down the hill bowling some quality medium pace which got the first wicket of the match.

Benbough and Roberts settled in for the next 13 or so overs picking off the odd bad ball from the Peckers. The Cat came back into the fray after 4 tight overs from Snax and felt more comfortable running up hill and with new recruit Fergie (Black Eye or Ronan) coming down the hill with some quality medium pace and a smattering of beamers. The Cat made the breakthrough having Roberts caught behind. Fergie was unlikely not to take one with Chef dropping an absolute sitter, 3 times we think. This did earn a long stint with the Armband.

Being only a 35 over game the middle order came in swinging and hit a fair few runs but we kept getting wickets regularly with the Baron coming on, tying up an end and securing 2 wickets in his 7 overs including the opener Jack who had scored and impressive 60 off 69 balls. This like the test match was also a game of dropped catches. I think I counted 7 chances of which a couple of tough ones With 7 overs shared between Mutley and Chef and some fairly short boundaries we did well to both restrict the runs and continue taking wickets with the latter showing his earlier drop was a clanger by holding on to one from his own bowling.

With the Cat and Lav still with overs in hand they were brought back for the last 5 overs and tore into the Chiddingfold Tail so bowling them out for 205 in 34.3 overs. Lav taking 4-25 and The Cat 3-21

The tea was a gorgeous little affair with a few delicious sarnies, watermelon and Chocolate cake. And tea….surprisingly for us.

Back - Moleman, Bagpuss, Pobsy, Chef, Beearon. Front - Lav, Muttley, Kwakka, Mapuddah, Fergie

And so started the peckers innings. Kwakka and Mutley were sent to the middle and started well with a few fours being cut to the short boundary. The Chiddingfold opening bowlers were good but most of their balls were outside the off stump until Mutley missed a straight one and was bowled for 10. This drew Moleman to the crease, after some exceptional work behind it (including a cracking stumping off Baron), who was flying along until he was caught and bowled.

This bought Lav to the crease and he stroked his way to an impressive 76 from only 44 deliveries with Kwakka (46) pushing us towards the target. Potty came in at the fall of Kwakka and gave some catching practice to the slip cordon before Lav was joined by Fergie who hit a useful 33 to get us to 182 for 5 and insight of a victory. However, the peckers tail did not wag as usual and with the quick loss of Chef, The Cat and Snax it was left to the skip and Baron to close the game out. Many Peckers were tuned in watching the amazing climax on Youtube.

We needed 6 to win off the last over, being bowled by the tricky off spin of Wood. Baron is not known for running, especially quick singles but between the Skip and him they scampered 5 singles to tie the scores and the end of the 35 overs.

As we were walking off, with the second Peckers tie in 2 weeks, it was decided that we would go for a super over and as we had been batting the peckers would head straight back out. This was the first Super Over in Peckers History and very exciting. Lav and Kwakka were quickly padded up and out to face an over from the young Chiddingfold opener. The batsmen shared the strike and rattled off a quick 17 runs which seemed like a great total.

However, with Potty having gone early the Peckers took the field with a substitute fielder and Lav bowling. Unfortunately, we encountered some interesting umpiring with 2 wides being given for the first 2 balls of the over, which were generous to say the least. We thought they needed 8 off 1 ball, but it turned out to be 2 with the wide confusion. Chidd captain Wood hit a big 6 and they managed to scamper 2 off the last ball to win by the barest of margins.

Another lovely Sunday afternoon with the Peckers with an amazingly close finish again. 2 ties in a row definitely a club record.

https://woodpeckers.play-cricket.com/website/results/5089101

You can watch videos of all the wickets here, though not the Super Over sadly