Has the digit that seemed to beckon to the 2^nd division last week turned into the fickle finger of fate?

The 2^nd team travelled on the 23^rd Feb to the warm (and worn!) courts at Cripps in Northampton.

First up was Kean Williams at number 5 who managed to just lose the first game 8-10 to a very tricky, but slow, Ros Williams. Then, despite an exhibition in retrieving, Kean succumbed in the next 2 games.

Kean was followed on court by Earl Harrison against youngster Tom Shaw at number 2.

On the other court Andy Frazer struggled to make an impression on the 5^th string John Anderson. Andy just could not time the ball consistently as it pinged off the side wall and ended up setting John up in the middle of the court time and time again.

Then Ian Shirley, seeing which way the wind was blowing went straight on with his 1990's "sack-o-spuds" Browning racket especially retained in the bag for the purpose of taking the pace off a hideously warm ball, but despite accurate line and length was still not good enough to take a game off Godfrey Kara, although had him worried in the first.

….meanwhile back on the first court Earl was engaged in yet another marathon and had just gone 2 games to 1 up on Tom 8-10 in the third.

Martin Thompson then went on court at 1 against, the other Martin, Shaw. Thompson then proceeded to demolish Shaw with a precision and speed that the older man struggled to cope with. Taking a little of the pressure off in the third allowed Shaw to come back to take the game 9-6, although with added resolve Thompson went back on to complete the job decisively in the fourth.

…and Earl was still going against Tom. Very tight lengths and accurate drop shots on the warm court were just not good enough to stop the persistent retrieving but at the end of the fifth game, Tom just sneaked it 6-9.

So weakened in the middle order, with both Peter Rhodes and Tim Arthur out this week, the Second team went down 1-4.

Cripps 2 were sitting in third place in the league before the match and won 16 points. With Market Harborough seconds taking only 5. The only consolation Market Harborough took away was that being 18 points in front of Kettering 4 before the match meant that it was mathematically impossible to be overtaken, however the margin is bound to have been reduced. Pressure's back on for next week, hopefully with a full side, and four more matches to play.