Scorecard

Chipperfield Clarendon III v Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI on Sat 11 Jun 2011 at 1:00pm
Match was Drawn 19 Points

Match report First the positives. 19 points, a significant improvement on 1 from two weeks ago and 8 from last week. The downside, we contrived to let a team who we had 0-3 within 3 overs draw a match. That doesn’t tell the whole story as the 0-3 was a touch deceptive so I will tell the whole protracted tale now...

Rain and more rain had fallen on Friday and so once again we were faced with a green pitch and lots of umming and arring about whether to stick them in and risk losing the points or subject our openers to trial by seaming new ball. As I am not an opening bat I opted for the later on winning the toss. This decision was slightly influenced by my telephone conversation with the Super-Agent (aka Boom Boom aka Siva) which went a little something like this:

12.35pm:

Chris: “Siva where are you?”

Siva: “at Totteridge ground”

Chris: “The opposition’s ground is 45 minutes away”

Siva: “I might be late”

Chris: “you and Veera would be opening the bowling”

Siva: “Veera’s in the car with me”

Chris to Opposition Captain: “We’ll have a bat”

So Phil and Kamlesh girded their loins and faced the onslaught. If the complaint of the last few weeks with the batting had been going at 5 and over but loosing regular wickets TMs openers decided to reverse this trend magnificently. Kamlesh played very fluently flicking anything slightly legside for 4 runs to keep things ticking over. Phil whilst not getting the runs he was after did well to stick in there and see off the new ball and was unfortunate to get a really good ball which he covered with a defensive shot only to be defeated by the seam movement, no shame in that. Ketan was up at 3 and although it took him a while to cotton on that his favourite drive down the ground was not an easy shot to play on a green wicket once he altered his approach he batted excellently to top score with 57. Kamlesh was bowled for an excellent 39 having played the new ball bowlers exquisitely Sanjay was next in and as we have come to expect was top class in his idiosyncratic fearless style. Sanj and Ket put on the better part of 100 runs together with minimal risk, in fact the only evident danger appeared to be that the calling between the wickets was more of a negotiation than anything else. Compared with our previously few weeks trials we were making serene progress only 2 wickets down heading into the last 10 overs. There was even chat about scoring too slowly, mutiny which was immediately and ruthlessly crushed by the skipper as rose tinted nostalgia clouding the stark reality of darker times. Ketan eventually was bowled and was warmly applauded off. Chris have been padded up for 45 overs went in at 5 but unfortunately, despite being able to bench about 300 pounds these days, power hitting ain’t his game and he fell trying to push things along. Milo was next up and had some licence to play with abandonment and did well. Sanj after hitting an imperious 6 over the longest square leg boundary was bowled for 49. That brought in Boom Boom who did not disappoint and smote two huge 6s on his way to a rapid 20 odd. Playing for his average is not his game and he was run out on the last ball of the 53 overs attempting an utterly suicidal second run. 227-6 was an excellent days work where the serious graft of the top 4 was well rewarded, more of the same is called for in the coming weeks.

After a reasonably sedate batting display to say that the match went into overdrive once we took the field would be something of an understatement. Roger picked up a wicket with his first over brilliantly caught by Neil in the gully after the bat had played a decent looking late cut which he must of thought was going to land him 4 runs. In Roger’s next over he had a bat caught by Ket off his gloves (well walked) and then the next man in inexplicably blasted the very next delivery miles in the air with loads of time for Sanjay to set himself. So Roger had figures of 1.3-1-0-3 at this point and was on a hatrick, sadly no cigar on that front but when Rahul chipped in with a bowled at the other end the 4s were in rapture. With hindsight I guess you could say such a frenetic start actually made us lose focus a little; also during this period Ketan keeping up to the stumps managed to wear one on the conk after it bounced and took off from the batsman’s pad. Joey our scorer come physio come first aider advised we needed to watch out for any signs of delayed concussion which would manifest itself in Ket starting to talk nonsense. Well good luck spotting that so we just got on with it and hoped Ket wouldn’t keel over before the match was done. Things calmed down slightly after this with the oppositions best batsman coming in to steady the ship. We didn’t take a wicket for at least 5 overs until Rahul undid the first of the numerous lefthanders. Roger and Neil combined again for Roger’s fourth before a slight impasse settled over proceedings. The new ball was taken and Siva immediately brought about an edge from their main bat which was shelled. Thankfully Kam the perpetrator on that occasion was spot on with the next chance which came off of Veera who after bowling 5 balls in the fabled corridor threw a wide one in (intentionally?) that was slapped to Kam at point. The next bat in was a bowler who got through 27 overs unchanged yet had turned up to the ground drinking a can of Fosters. He took guard about 3 feet outside the crease which seemed a slightly curious tactic to a man of Veera’s pace. An enormous swing at the first and indeed sole delivery of his innings rose high into the sky with Chris well placed to steady himself to take the catch. 8 down with about 20 overs to go, surely in the bag. Well, not as it turned out and credit where it is due as the opposition could have gone into their shells and tried to block out a draw on a pitch which seemed to have gone pretty flat. Instead recognising that they needed some batting points they decided that attack was the best form of defence and so on and boundaries started to flow. The game started to slip away from us with numbers 8 and 10 batting well but one last bowling change to bring on Sanjay brought a mistake from number 10 who had made 49, Neil dashed back from gully and took a diving catch leaving us 3 deliveries at number 11. Alas no dramatic finish despite Sanj forcing him to play each delivery.

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 6 wickets
0
227
(0.0 overs)		    
Philip Ridout Bowled  T.Gray 8
Kamlesh Bharadia Bowled  P.Wise 39 1
Ketan Shah Bowled  P.Wise 57 1
Sanjay Patnaik Bowled  I.Veith 49 1
Chris Benn Caught  I.Veith 3 1
Miles Hencoe Not Out  11
Sivasankar Sakthivel Run out  21
Rahul Bhatnagar  
Neil Dennison   3
Roger Luck  
Veerapandiyan Rengasamy  

Chipperfield Clarendon III Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
P.Wise27.0489244.503.30
S.Mahmood6.031500.002.50
T.Gray12.0339139.003.25
I.Veith8.0056228.007.00

Chipperfield Clarendon III Batting
Player name Runs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 9 wickets
0
173 (0.0 overs)
M.Oliver Caught  R.Luck (N.Dennison) 0
M.Leach Bowled  R.Batnagar 0
R.Churchill Caught  R.luck (S.Patnaik) 0
G.Wheeler Caught  R.luck (K.Shah) 2
G.Kempston Bowled  R.Batnagar 13
I.Veith Caught  V. Rengasamy (K.Bharadia) 59
J.Gurney Caught  R.luck (N.Dennisson) 4
T.Bambury Not Out  30
P.Wise Caught  V. Rengasamy (C.Benn) 0
T.Gray Caught  S.Patnaik (N.Dennisson) 49
S.Mahmood Not Out  0

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Roger Luck18.0564416.003.56
Rahul Bhatnagar10.0222211.002.20
Chris Benn3.011300.004.33
Sivasankar Sakthivel6.013000.005.00
Veerapandiyan Rengasamy7.0225212.503.57
Sanjay Patnaik3.01515.001.67