Scorecard

Northchurch II v Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 3rd XI on Sat 19 Jun 2010 at 1:00pm
Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Won by 2 wickets

Match report With Doug Pyrke stuck in his broken Clio still at 12.55pm, Charlie's choices with the new ball were clearly limited. A strong showing from Northchurch's father/son opening pair (the younger of whom went on to score a dominant 76) got the opposition off to a good start.

The skipper opted for spin to slow the Northchurch batsmen down - and if a couple of key catches had been held - we'd have probably been chasing little over 150.

In the end - however, the rest of the runs came from a youthful yet agricultural approach to batting. The no. 5 managed to score all his 47 runs from a pre-meditated sweep (with an easy catch dropped behind square on his 4th ball - also coincidentally his 4th attempted sweep).

The no. 7, donning what looked like an ice-hockey keeper's grill, but was in fact a standard batting helmet with peak sawn off for good measure, managed to slap a few too many boundaries with bunter-esque grace through cow. He was first bowled (but neither umpire noticed) and then caught at cow, which was guarded by no fewer than 5 fieldsmen. He clearly didn't notice the solitary fielder on the off-side offering runs-a-plenty.

The innings was topped off by a fantastic spell from Doug (4 wickets) - who eventually arrived halfway through the innings having kicked the Clio into action with - who'd have guessed it - a brief turn of the key in the ignition. His pace will no doubt come into its own once he's available again in a couple of weeks. Well done to Arun for holding up one end, and taking a well-desered 5 wickets.

Onto the batting - and in a nutshell - we didn't make it easy for ourselves - but it came good in the end. Pete (having called a bad run and run out Jez early on) and Hilton steadily accumulated. You did feel for Northchurch at times - with quite a few edges running low through the slips for 4 - but nonetheless - Pete managed the incredible feat of carrying his bat with a patient and focused knock. A first for the 3rd XI perhaps?

Hilton took one low on the back foot and was dismissed in the thirties; Pablo's wicket was bought with a chest high slow one; and Mani clearly not learning from earlier events in the day, played back and let it hit his pads too. Cue some acceleration from N. Piquet and Arjun - but at the cost of both their wickets too.

160-6 with 10 overs to go - easy on paper - but Pete kept on playing a patient game, hitting the bad ball, rotating the strike etc and supported by a couple of good boundaries from Mike Pratt before he was dismissed, followed by Arun, leaving Doug to polish off the innings as he had done Northchurch's. A couple of great shots leaving him 18 not out.

Good win in the end - with Northchurch's record of having lost 8 from 8 kept in tact - but only just.

Northchurch II Batting
196 for 10
Player name Runs
  Caught  10
  Caught  76
  Caught  2
  Lbw  1
  Caught  47
  Lbw  0
  Lbw  41
  Bowled  2
  Bowled  2
  Not Out  2
  Caught  2

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 3rd XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Charles Low9.004500.005.00
Arun Madhasaravanan23.0485517.003.70
Arjun Chopra7.0037137.005.29
Doug Pyrke7.322546.253.33

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 3rd XI Batting
197 for 8
Player Name RunsCatchesStumpingsRun outs
Peter Leslie Not Out  85
Jeremy Book Run out  4
Hilton Nathanson Lbw  36 1
Pablo Martin Caught  0
Mani Periyasami Lbw  6
Prakash Kannan Caught  16
Arjun Chopra Lbw  13 2
Michael Pratt Caught  10 1
Arun Madhasaravanan Bowled  3
Doug Pyrke Not Out  18
Charles Low  

Northchurch II Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.