Scorecard

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 3rd XI v Radlett IV on Sat 20 Jun 2009 at 13:30
Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Won by (at least) 3 wickets

Match report I've emailed Tom Stoppard to see if he wants to write the report for this game. He's great at handling farce and has also handled Felicity Kendal's tuppence, so he's two up on me...

And here it is, not from Tom but Alex Book, Club Captain, who apologies for the marathon length but what can I say, there was a lot to report!

It was a game of two halves (and three umpires)...

Starting as it did with what looked uncannily like an actual warm-up, it was clear this was going to be no ordinary 3rd XI cricket match. And it turned out to be a game which, in the words of one Radlett player, "had it all".

A stern word in the changing room from stand-in skipper Charlie Low in his last game in charge got the blood pumping, and TM's took to the field with the confidence that comes from being able to select a team full of strength, with a multitude of options available, especially the batting.

A few early looseners from Shahrukh allowed the Radlett openers to ease into the game with both looking competent, particularly on the leg-side. But the screw was quickly tightened, helped by Charlie, bowling from the other end, intelligently fielding himself at Shahrukh's side at mid-off and was thus able to provide the necessary 'encouragement'.

A succession of maidens induced a mini-panic without quite delivering the required wicket, but when, after 17 overs of a relatively mild, overcast match, the young, fit batsmen both called for an impromptu drink, we suspected things might be about to turn. Shahrukh proceeded to induce a miscued drive from the more powerful opener, and the skipper eventually made the catch look very easy, having moved quickly and, frankly, brilliantly, to his left to take a catch few onlookers would have put money on (we checked).

Two overs later brought probably the catch of the season, the other opener dabbing one into the gully, the pace of the ball taking it past Stef Da Re for a boundar- no, wait, he's caught it!! He can't have done! He has! Stef reacted superbly to take the ball behind him and low to his right, to really set the standard and raise the excitement levels of all those taking part.

Charlie then opened his account just before drinks with a mis-timed pull straight to Will Hughes at midwicket, who was a bit disappointed that his catch was so mundane. So the skipper himself decided to re-raise the bar, and a chip over his head off Shahrukh resulted in a one-handed leap and yet another stunning catch. Not bad old fella, not bad.

It's worth taking a moment to recall the comment from the young, technically correct but very defensive number 4, who had decided to stem the flow of wickets by not attempting to score. At all. As Charlie and Shahrukh toiled on, he turned and said something along the lines of "haven't you got any other bowlers?". You’ve got to admire the cheek of the little fellow. Unless, of course, you are Hilton. Having already been made tardy (again) by his own offspring, Hilton gave it to the lad straight: “Listen mate, if you could hit the ball off the f*cking square, we might need some different bowlers.”

The young lad blocked on unperturbed, and when Kriss cleverly dropped him in an effort to achieve that old goal of RUN AVOIDANCE (or so he says), we knew that we were in complete control. Another good catch, scooped off the floor by Will off Charlie (27-6-91-2), a calm under-arm run out by Kit Hutcheson (who had an excellent day in the field, setting an early standard with some brilliant diving stops), and, finally, a wicket by way of the stumps from Shahrukh (26-7-69-4), restricted Radlett to 162-8 from their 53 overs, a score we knew to be well under par at Rowley Lane.

An optimistic, positive team shared tea around one of the big round tables and then Stef and Will set about the chase well, Will in particular looking sharp and in control, despite not having played much cricket (too busy 'studying', allegedly). Stef fell trying to dab one through the slips, and Hilton took over, he and Will putting an excellent partnership together. When Will was bowled for 34, there was little sign of the chaos about to unfold…

We should mention at this point that because Radlett provide about 87 umpires to the panel, they do not have to provide their own umpire in Div 6 games, unlike the other teams. However they did have a chap available to stand for the first innings, and he umpired well. What I don’t think we fully realised was that this guy could only stand for half the game, and another Radlett bloke had taken over for our innings.

Alex went in at number 4 and watched, bemused, from the non-strikers end as a ball that would have missed a second strip, never mind a second set, escaped without being called. An evidently sheepish bowler went back to his mark, but suspicion was aroused about the credentials of this ump.

Three balls later, Alex found himself trudging back to the pavilion after a strangled, barely-there appeal to a ball that hit above the knee-roll down the leg side was met in the affirmative. A few punched walls and thrown bats later, the innings was progressing well again, so all's well that ends well. Or so it seemed.

But after Jim and Hilton had taken the score up to the hundred mark, Hilton (39) was astonished to have been given out to a ball that hit his thigh pad. His thigh pad. And no, he wasn't reverse-sweeping.

There followed some incredulous speculation on what would need to happen to force us to intervene. Well what would need to happen would be that Kriss Waters would have to become the third victim, triggered whilst reaching a yard outside the line of off-stump and at full stretch forwards too. Guess what happened? Go on, guess.

Enough was enough. Charlie, never one to overreact, strolled onto the pitch to have a civil chat with the Radlett skipper, Tony Johnson, incidentally also the Chairman of the Herts League. An amicable agreement was reached whereby Kriss would be reinstated (you know it's a bad decision when your own team call a batsman back), and our friend would see out the rest of the innings from square leg, and square leg alone. Goodness only knows what would have happened if there had been a stumping.

With a good sense of ordered fair play, Kriss became perhaps the first batsman in history to be given out LBW twice to the same bowler in the same innings - kindly saving Harish the trouble of rubbing his previous departure out of the scorebook - and left the field with the sage comment, "Well at least that was a hell of a lot closer than the last one".

When it transpired that the myopic, cricket-impaired umpire was a good friend of Tony Alderton (curiously unavailable for this match - did he know what was coming?) it oddly didn't make any difference whatsoever to our general sense of ill-justice, despite assurances that he was "a lovely bloke who used to manage Chris Rea". But TM's finally got across the line with some good, sensible finishing from Kit and Shahrukh, and the 30 points were rightfully ours.

With all this shenanigans afoot, there was no need to liven up the second half of the game – unlike, it seems, many a cricket match played at Spitalfields in the 18th Century:

Black Bess of the Mint, c.1744, frequently engaged to enliven dull Spitalfields games by running foot races without drawers against Little Bit o’ Blue, a Stepney person.

Radlett IV Batting
Player name Runs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 8 wickets
0
162 (0.0 overs)
M Soffair Caught  C. Low bowled S. Navaee 47
O. Jackson Caught  S. Da Re bowled S. Navaee 16
J Reza Caught  W. Hughes bowled C.Low 9
J. Charles Not Out  38
T. Sutherland Caught  C. Low bowled S. Navaee 7
L. Greenland Caught  W. Hughes bowled C. Low 12
S. Foyez Bowled  S. Navaee 15
A. Rahman Run out  K. Hutchinson 0
T. Johnson Not Out  13
   
   

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 3rd XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Charles Low27.0691245.503.37
Shahrokh Navaee26.0769417.252.65

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 3rd XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 7 wickets
0
164
(0.0 overs)		    
Stefano Da Re Caught  J. Reza 7 1
Will Hughes Bowled  S. Rehman 34 2
Hilton Nathanson Lbw  S. Fowez 39
Alex Book Lbw  T. Sutherland 0
Shiyam Mohamed Caught  T. Sutherland 3
James Hutcheson Caught  S. Fowez 27
Kristian Waters Lbw  (twice) S. Fowez 5
Kit Hutcheson Not Out  16 1
Shahrokh Navaee Not Out  9
Charles Low  
Stewart Wernham  

Radlett IV Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
A. Rahman8.013100.003.87
J. Reza10.0250150.005.00
S. Rehman4.0113113.003.25
T. Sutherland6.0027213.504.50
L. Greenland4.002000.005.00
S. Fowez4.12832.671.92

  • Umpire :
    Bob Chandler
  • Scorer :
    Matt Crutchlow