Saturday 15th May 2021 was a welcome return to competitive cricket for Liphook's 2nd Team vs Medstead CC 1st team in the Hampshire Cricket League Division 4 North, after the long pause caused by Covid 19.

It was touch and go from the outset as to whether or not we'd get a game because of the amount of rain we'd had leading up to this first game of the season. Our groundsman Jack Smith had done a great job in preparing the wicket, square and outfield and in spite of damp and overcast conditions agreement between the two sides was made to give it a go.

We lost the toss and were put into bat. Conditions were difficult with the ball swinging and seaming significantly on a slow wicket with sporadic showers, and a number of our batsmen fell early. It was thanks to David Oliver (known as 'Dolly' to most of us) and his outstanding innings of 47, young U15 Will Quinnell who added 17 vital runs, Jonathan James ('JJ') who made 12, and Seb Brixton who made 11, that Liphook managed to give itself a fighting chance of winning the game by setting a competitive target of 128.

We lost a few overs due to rain and the revised target for Medstead CC was 125 from 36 overs. Our opening bowlers Dylan Grimes and Seb Brixton both bowled superbly and gave us the early break-throughs we needed to give us a chance of winning the game. Dylan took 2 for 27 off 7 overs. Seb Brixton, who just re-joined the club this season, had a great start to playing with us and took 3/27/8. Will Q followed up on his fine knock with 2/11/4. Sam Harvey bowled very neatly with 4 maidens and took 1/12/7. JJ, who had travelled down from London to help make up our 11man team, fittingly got the last man out. Medstead were all out for 106 off 33 overs and Liphook won by 18 runs with 3 overs remaining.