Scorecard

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI v Northampton Exiles II on Sat 22 May 2010 at 1:00pm
Match was Drawn

Match report Exiles on Main Road, no win, no loss, no problem.

Who won? The pitch won. And maybe the heat. Nobody else, it proving horiibly difficult to bowl a side out on the road that is Rowley with tired bowlers and a ball that went soft very quickly.
After another difficult week on the selection front (when is it not difficult?) one more Posse diamond was unearthed in the form of Abhilesh Mathew who fielded like a demon and batted with panache. Shahrokh again showed himself to be a genuine all-rounder, Chris plugged the opening gap with himself, and Steve bowled another marathon spell, while of course if you can't win the next best thing is to deny the opposition a sniff. Pragmatic rather than romantic but this is league cricket where, as we all know, there is N F A.
The Exiles won the toss and batted (we would have put them in) and in no time Chris had swooped to run out the older opener who struggled with his partner's over-ambitious calling. Middle it, run, innit?
We then had a partnership between the Exiles own Glimmer Twins, wristy no.1 and the slogger no.3, which showed the writing on the wall. Chris rang the changes with his 'balanced' (i.e. all equally ineffectual) attack. But Sanjay reached the high point of his spell with two quick wickets, Steve pinned no.1 bang in front, and though Sanj may have been overbowled as the middle order collared him a bit, and Siva might think he was underbowled given his economy, we gradually worked our way into the tail. Atif cured his no ball issues and showed he can swing it nicely while Steve's figures were helped by the lesser Exiles batsmen playing some interesting shots. Sadly a few catches were spilled by normally reliable fielders, but then again the ground fielding probably saved 20-30 runs. 213 looked like a below-par score on a road on the hottest day of the year so far but with our shaky batting it was going to be a challenge to surpass it.
Another challenge soon rocked up in the form of some of the most interesting new-ball bowling seen in League cricket. While Mughal was the very essence of NFA with his parsimonious off-cutters, rewarded by his excellent figures, the other chap mixed triple-bouncing wides with head-high no balls, with the odd jaffa thrown in. The confusion sown in the batsmens' minds accounted for Kamlesh who played three shots to a moon ball before it was well held at gully by the Exiles' skipper, who admitted he considered dropping it to prevent his man buying himself another over.
Anyway Chris was the rock-like rhythm section of the outfit, watching the upper middle order come and go, before perishing himself to another loopy tosser-upper, as the Exiles tried to buy wickets with 'spin'. Then the real entertainment came, Abhilesh (25) creaming it to all parts, Siva hitting 21 off 10 balls (in contrast Chris's 29 came off 55) and Shahrukh and Jim getting us close to contention in their contrasting styles.
Jim's broken right thumb dictated a correct top-hand style (doesn't he always play that way?) while Sharkey crouched to conquer a la Gilbert Jessop of yore, smiting mighty sixes and driving handsome fours. Their partnership of 52 in 12 overs deflated the oppo, whose comedy lines frankly stank, while the setting sun became their likeliest weapon as the bowling became tamer.
Final overs specialist Steve strolled out when Jim's vigil was ended by a yorker (bowled Sun) but the final three overs were negotiated pretty easily and points accrual, the revised strategy, came good as we trousered 15 to their 18.


Northampton Exiles II Batting
213 for 7
Player name Runs
A Naik Lbw  Lyall 62
B Bower Run out  Benn 1
A O'Neill Lbw  Patnaik 45
P Frost Caught  (Hutcheson) Patnaik 11
C Hosser Bowled  Navaee 66
S Goldman Bowled  Lyall 9
A Arif Caught  (Malik) Lyall 4
R Cashman Not Out  5
M Sridhar Not Out  3
Z Mughal  
M Deller  

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Shahrokh Navaee12.0232132.002.67
Sivasankar Sakthivel7.011300.001.86
Atif Malik6.002700.004.50
Steve Lyall17.0162320.673.65
Sanjay Patnaik11.0067233.506.09

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Batting
187 for 8
Player Name RunsCatchesStumpingsRun outs
Kamlesh Bharadia Caught  Deller 12
Chris Benn Caught  Frost 29 1
Laurie Goldsmith Caught  Mughal 2
Sanjay Patnaik Lbw  Mughal 9
Mark Grason Bowled  Mughal 4
Abhilash Mathew Caught  Frost 25
Shahrokh Navaee Not Out  45
Sivasankar Sakthivel Caught  Hosser 21
James Hutcheson Bowled  Mughal 12 1
Steve Lyall Not Out  2
Atif Malik  

Northampton Exiles II Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Z Mughal20.0840410.002.00
M Deller4.0022122.005.50
M Sridhar8.032700.003.38
P Frost4.0031215.507.75
C Hosser6.0223123.003.83
A Asif2.002500.0012.50
S Goldman3.001600.005.33