Spruce leads the way as the emotions take over at Little Stoke

Word of Spruce's performance had quickly spread...

The Oulton First XI were on the road this week as they made the short journey to the bottom of Stone town to take on Little Stoke CC. In fact some of the lads had been on longer pub crawls than that journey!

It was to prove to be another impressive showing from the O’s as they put in a professional performance against Division three's basement side.

After winning the toss and electing to field first the travellers set about their work well with captain Dan Colclough setting the tone at the start of the innings taking figures of 4-24.

Colclough then made way for the Man of the Match Tom Spruce as the well-balanced spinner tore through the Little Stoke batting line-up with five wickets for 48 runs. It was a spell of bowling for the locals to tell their grandchildren about.

Spruce’s spell had it all drama, suspense, flight, guile, large breasts and of course wickets.

After the throngs of the disproportional spinners adoring fans had retreated back to the stands the hosts were bowled out for 130.

It is worth noting that the Spitting Cobra even joined the parade and took a wicket this week. Finally.

In response Oulton made short work of the Little Stoke posting thanks to another quintessentially brisk innings from the Church Eaton Moose (Andy Wood). The big man added to his six counter in his innings of 39.

However the game wasn’t over and after the pressure of the occasion got to Tom (Teflon) Phillips who had to retire on 16, it was left to the man of the hour Spruce to shoulder the burden with the scoreboard poised trickily on 60-0 off 7 overs.

A measured yet scintillating 25 not out from the plump left-hander sent the baying crowd into raptures again. Spruce barely made it off with his shirt and pants in one piece and was greeted at the pavilion by gorgeous women in togas throwing what appeared to be roses at his feet.

We think they were roses it was difficult for this reporter to tell through tear soaked eyes.

Rob Spruce also stuck around for 20 odd…

We later caught up with Oulton’s captain Colclough: “I am really happy for Spruce, he’s a humble kid and someone who wouldn’t want all of this attention.

“He really is one of the greatest spinners I’ve ever played with. You would think his size would hold him back but he just gets on with it you know… these are the cards he’s been dealt and I say good on him!

"Not only he is a great player, he is also a great friend." Finished the skipper holding back the emotion... just kiss!

All in all it was a good win the O’s  and one which keeps them third in the table just eight points off the second automatic promotion spot.