Scorecard

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI v County Hall II on Sat 10 Jul 2010 at 1:00pm
Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Lost by 45 runs

Match report TMIVs
County Hall II
At Rowley Lane

This Saturday brought the 4s up against our nearest rivals County Hall who occupied third and fourth in the table respectively. We knew we would need to have a good day at the office to keep our winning streak going.

Their previous form suggested CH tend like to pile up the runs and so it was as Chris lost the toss again TMs found themselves in the field in the stifling heat. Siva opened proceedings and needed to keep things tight on account of the absurdly short off-side boundary from his end. Tight he managed as did Rakesh who bowled a lovely opening spell giving offering nothing to their openers and was unlucky not to pick up a wicket. Siva managed tight and added the bonus of one of the openers who was given out LBW off a full straight one that was begging to be launched. We then foolishly offered two lives to the new bat dropping an easy slip chance and a harder catch in the deep both off of Steve’s bowling who had replaced Rakesh (6-4-17-0). Siva (11-1-31-3) collected another two wickets clean bowling the other CH opener and number 4. Sreekesh was brought on for a bit of spin with the plan being to protect the short boundary from slogs over cow corner. An excellent plan in theory but this was scuppered by one of the batsman being left handed and thus the short boundary was very much to his liking. Sreekesh did pick up the wicket of the number 3 who had batted well for 57 despite his lives, but then the wheels came off slightly as he struggled to pitch the ball and found himself in the tennis courts on one too many occasions. Steve was bowling with his usual stinginess by this time and Chris managed to pick up a couple of wickets one with a reasonable ball outside of off stump tempting the batsman into a rash shot and one with a disgusting pie that the left hander should have smashed over to Totteridge Green but managed only to top edge to Krishan Chopra who caught well at square leg. CH’s lower order did a good job of chipping in with valuable runs that were in the end the difference between the sides. Steve picked up three wickets at the end of the innings including a catch at slip to partially atone for the early one that got away and an excellent stumping by AB, he finished with (19.5-3-60-3). Rahul bowled a brief tight spell at the other end to close the innings collecting a wicket in the process (6-0-26-1). 228 all out was more than we had hopped to be chasing but by no means was a disaster.

What was a disaster was Chris’ attempt at a leave to the opening bowler who, it has to be said, used the pitch extremely well and deserved the five that he ended up with. In mitigation the ball was pitching well outside the off-stump but too much netting with old balls lulled me into a false sense of security as this one nipped back off the proud seam to clip the top of off. Miles Hencoe opening at the other end had been slightly fortunate to survive an early LB shout but putting that to the back of his mind started to look good and played well for 22 before he was triggered to one that didn’t bounce much. Hutch (18) batting with a semi-broken thumb played two of the ugliest smears that were seen all day the first majestically launched into the tennis courts the second completely missed with the ball crashing through his stumps leaving the batsman to crash his bat into the pitch in frustration. Sanjay and Rakesh coming in, in the middle order could not stop the rot unfortunately and it took an excellent partnership between AB-de-Mathew and Krishan Chopra to get the opposition concerned about their total being overhauled. Once Krishan got into his stride it was clear that he had been taking batting (and running) tips from his elder sibling plundering some brutal shots in his well made 43. AB also took to the fight to the teasing spin bowling of the CH captain but tried one too many flicks off his pads and was trapped in front (though the dispute about this one carried on well after the game had ended). Siva came and went and Rahul put up some good lower order resistance before being caught leaving Steve and Sreekesh to negotiate six overs together to see us to a draw. It was very close, Sreekesh looked comfortable against the spin and Steve looked fine against the seam even employing a useful baseball style shot to try and get us an extra couple of batting points. However with the final ball of the penultimate over the quick bowler managed to get a full inswinger through Steve’s defences effectively causing him to walk in honest fashion as the ball hit his pads about a third of the way up on middle.

County Hall II Batting
228 for 10
Player name Runs
N.Sharp Lbw  S.Sakthivel 0
M.Barlett Bowled  S.Sakthivel 7
G.Barnaby Bowled  S.Venugapol 57
W.Archer Bowled  S.Sakthivel 4
M.Barnaby Caught  C.Benn (Chopra) 46
M.Jones Caught  C.Benn (Chopra) 28
D.Melisi Caught  R.Bhatrager (S.Vanugopal) 31
N.Marsh Caught  S.Lyall (S.Vanugopal) 25
R.Maslanka Caught  S.Lyall (S.Patnaik) 8
C.Barnaby Stumped  S.Lyall 9
J.Williamson Not Out  1

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Sivasankar Sakthivel11.0131310.332.82
Rakesh Venugopal6.041700.002.83
Steve Lyall19.5360320.003.03
Sreekesh Vanugopal3.0032132.0010.67
Chris Benn7.0051225.507.29
Rahul Bhatnagar6.0026126.004.33

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Batting
183 for 10
Player Name RunsCatchesStumpingsRun outs
Chris Benn Bowled  D.Melisi 3
Miles Hencoe Lbw  D.Melisi 22
James Hutcheson Bowled  D.Melisi 18
Sanjay Patnaik Lbw  N.Marsh 14 1
Rakesh Venugopal Caught  D.Melisi 4
Krishan Chopra Caught  N.Marsh 43 2
Abhilash Mathew Lbw  D.Melisi 40 1
Sivasankar Sakthivel Caught  N.Marsh 0
Rahul Bhatnagar Caught  N.Marsh 9
Sreekesh Vanugopal Not Out  5 2
Steve Lyall Lbw  M.Jones 6

County Hall II Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
M.Jones11.0326126.002.36
D.Melisi19.0182516.404.32
N.Marsh16.0063415.753.94