Scorecard

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Sunday XI v Chris Benn invitation XI on Sat 11 Sep 2010 at 1:00pm
Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Won by 112 runs

Match report TM Sunday Side v. Chris Benn Stag XI
11/09/2010
Played at Totteridge Green

After a brief spell of drizzle the match got under way with Chris’ boys in the field after a not in any way rigged coin toss allowed Roger’s side to rack up as many as they liked before the boot would be firmly applied to the oppositions neck.

Roger and Steve opened up for TMs and had to face the unrelenting accuracy of Tom “Military Medium” Banks and Mike “the Best Man” Watson. A chance came early doors, second ball in fact as Roger opened up a booming drive off a full toss, as luck would have it he found one of the two “professional” players on Chris’ side who promptly shelled it (Chris being the guilty party should have spotted how the game was going to pan out for him at this point). Watson knew better than to rely on his fielders for wickets managed to get one to nip down the hill and take the top of the Chairman’s off stump. His devastating 3 over spell yielded a hatrick of wickets (in the loosest sense) with Roger caught by his opposition skipper at mid-off plus Andrew Shoreman after playing a few useful looking shots, held well by Hutch at mid-wicket. At the other Banks sporting unfeasibly short trousers with no fly, returned an excellent economy rate for his 3 overs (in no way attributable to Webby’s generous interpretation of wides).

With 3 down fairly early up Waqas and Rahul the Totteridge spin-kings had to dig in and rebuild. Rahul was the aggressor plundering useful boundaries with Waqas trying to find his feet against the probing length of Matt “the Windmill” Puttman. A run out chance went begging as Hutch tried to show the amateurs how to pick up and throw on the charge without in anyway executing the pickup element of the skill. Waqas retreated further into his shell prompting a considerable amount of sledging, not from the opposition but from the umpire much to the amusement of the Stag side. Steve’s barracking almost gifted Puttman a wicket as Waq tried to show who was boss but the chance was shelled by Watson at mid-off, toilet fielding in truth. At opposite end Mike “Flawed” Ford was on and finding some decent wheels. A little unfortunately for Ford, Webby had been banished back to the home changing room at this point by his skipper who had had enough of “his Micky Mousing around with wides”. Ford did however encourage Jamie Wright into an injudicious swipe that was held (thank God) by Chris at mid-off. Hugh “quicker than Dazzler” Gough came on to bowl some testing off-breaks. It’s possible that the pitch was a little damp for spin but we may never know as not enough of them landed on the pitch to gain a decent enough sample for scientific study. Rahul began enjoying the buffet but after blazing away for a decent half-century was eventually run out as Hutch made amends for his earlier effort with wicketkeeper Joe McArdle doing the rest.

At this point Chris turned to his secret weapon, Sean “the Yank” O’Riordan who politely asked his skipper if he wanted him to “turn up the Heat”. Getting on the pitch was just fine with “the Heat” no doubt to come once he had found his rhythm. The early signs weren’t too encouraging, we were playing on Pitch 3 but Sean’s first ball was delivered from Pitch 4 down the hill. A minor adjustment later and Sean had completed a 12 ball over (though Roger was particularly harsh on some of the wides that were basically brushing the batsman’s pads down the legside). With Booky now in inevitably Chris turned to Hutch who was immediately impressed with there “being some juice in the pitch”. Booky was less than keen to get out to this particular tormentor thrusting forward with stoic defence. Sadly for him Hutch ripped an off-cutter down the hill and uprooted middle stump, out for a duck though as we will see, there’s no disgrace in that. Chris’ brother Matt was on at the other end and bowled a mixture of full pitched jaffas with legside dross, the kind of inconsistency that is very much at home in friendly cricket.

We now had in arguably the Sunday sides’ batsmen of the year with Prakash “Beer” Kannan partnered with Phil “Single Malt?” Ridout. Chris brought himself on to try a bit of leg spin but was BADLY let down in the field with players diving over the ball which would then work its merry way to the boundary. With the spin ploy failing he tried some seam up but only succeeding in awakening the beast in PK. As we entered the final overs the score had worked its way to a sizeable 200+ and so Chris turned to his parsimonious opening bowler Banks. Unfortunately with PK now in full smite mode the bowler suffered. Boundaries were rife including one six back over the bowlers head which probably has still not landed, Banks was hauled off and replaced by Matt Benn who had PK dropped by Sean despite a spectacular effort (he maintains if he had been allowed his baseball fielding mitt he’d have made it) but Matt finally snagged his man with a dolly held at first slip by Puttman. PK departed for an excellent sixty odd bringing in Ridout Jr, Jr, Freddie to the crease. The father, son combo was working well into the final overs of the innings, Joe the wicket keeper bowled the final over with disaster striking as Phil with no consideration for his son’s average called a suicidal two on the last ball of the innings, a direct hit from Puttman saw Freddie run out. Phil finished unbeaten (at the expense of his son) adding to his excellent seasons tally.

A mere 252 to get in 35 overs from a team who it could be said, we lacking in international experience in the batting stakes. Will Reburn after refusing his skipper’s offer of an over (thus by default declaring himself to opening bat maestro) was sent in to open things up alongside Puttman. Things started badly with Will surviving three balls from Webby before being cleaned up, duped, as so many before by the quick run up and slow release. Banks entered as the number 3 linchpin and immediately started to use his feet to the bowlers. Freddie Ridout was providing the challenge at the other end but the batsman were finding some gaps in the field and scoring some runs. By the pavilion the Stag XI could see that this running would eventually tell on Banks whose recent honeymoon had prevented his return to top shape. He had to run too many threes and found himself delirious with fatigue missing a straight one from the predator Webb but exited for a respectable 19. Ford entered the fray but found the water temperature not to his liking and departed soon after. Puttman then became another of Webb’s victims having made 16.

Sean was now in and adopted a slightly curious stance resembling that of..... oh yes, a baseball player with his bad held aloft over head height. If young Freddie was intimidated he didn’t show it and managed to hit Sean’s ankles a few times before pitching one on off beating the home run swing. Matt Benn arrived and looked solid in defence, he played a few shots but was ultimately undone by a straight one, even so, he won the battle of the Chappels in terms of wickets taken and runs today. Mike tried to restore some dignity as the wickets column was racking up for Roger’s boys, one swipe hit the sight screen (although no one was outdoing PK on the six front today). Hugo was in at the other end but had mistakenly assumed that play would be resuming the following day and spent his entire innings playing for the close. On the occasions when he unfurled his classy looking cover drive he picked out the fielder each time.

After Mike had been bowled Joe the wicket keeper came in. Joe’s method of batting in school was to hit 3 fours, get over confident and get out. Today he hit two 4s, ran a 3, got knackered, got out. Hutch was in next and resumed his battle with A.Book. Alex has shelved his quicker delivery these days after his GBH on Zoe’s leg on President’s Day and so was relying on off-spin on a damp slow track. I could have informed him there’s no future in that but Hutch took it on himself to teach that Book a lesson with some well timed slogs to the rope. After a while Rog decided that enough was enough and brought himself on to finish things off. A few balls later he had Hutch trapped in front as he went fatally back to one that crashed into his pads six inches up in front of middle. The umpire had no choice and Hutch was on his way back to the pavilion bringing in Chris as last man.

So 100 runs to get in about 8 overs with 1 wicket in hand, sounds like the kind of fairy tale that the Captain of the Stag XI could sign up for. Roger the Exterminator had other ideas. The decent thing to do obviously would be something slow, short and way outside off but instead Roger unleashed a laser guided delivery that shaped into the hapless batsman before straightening and defeating him all ends up. Bowled first ball. For the first time in my cricketing life I was not sure where I wanted to be more, in the middle with the opposing team now celebrating their sizeable victory or with my own team who were so delirious with joy at my premature demise that I have begun to suspect the involvement of Indian bookmakers. I think the answer is neither. Hugo ended up not out on 13 (off around 60 balls we think), a classic 35 over knock if ever you saw one.

The end of the game saw a friendly shake of hands and some welcome beers for the Stag team. Thanks to Roget et al for the match, a very enjoyable afternoon. Suffice to say spending the evening with Banks lecturing me on the merits of transferring my weight forward when batting was not quite what I had envisaged when arranging the fixture.....

And finally - Roger’s on a hatrick for his next ball whenever that may be....

Report by...Chris Benn.

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Sunday XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 9 wickets
0
252
(0.0 overs)		    
Roger Luck Caught  2
Steve Lyall Bowled  1
Andrew Shoreman Caught  8
Rahul Bhatnagar Run out  67
Waqas Memon Caught  25
Jamie Wright Caught  9 1
Alex Book Bowled  0
Prakash Kannan Caught  62
Philip Ridout Not Out  44
Freddie Ridout Run out  6
Mike Webb  

Chris Benn invitation XI Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Chris Benn invitation XI Batting
Player name Runs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 10 wickets
0
140 (0.0 overs)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
Chris Benn Bowled  Luck 0

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Sunday XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Mike Webb7.002036.672.86
Freddie Ridout5.0034217.006.80
Andrew Shoreman3.0021121.007.00
Philip Ridout5.0019119.003.80
Alex Book4.002800.007.00
Roger Luck1.00422.004.00