Scorecard

Cockfosters III v Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI on Sat 06 Jun 2009 at 13:30
Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club Lost

Match report TMCC VI v. Cockfosters III
At Cockfosters on 06.06.09
Cockfosters: 214-6 off 53.0
TMCC: 129-10 off 35.1 overs
Match Lost

Let’s get this out the way early on; this was not the 4s finest hour by some distance.

With the recently departed showers fresh in the wicket on winning the toss Chris had no hesitation in inserting the opposition. Steve (19-4-74-2) and Ollie (11-2-38-2) resumed normal service with Ollie clean bowling the opener early on attempting to whip one off middle stump. Number three did not last long skying one off of Steve with the skipper running round from mid-off to collect the catch at mid-on. Steve picked up his second Sanjay doing the honours at cover. Sam Moore bowled a tight spell (6-2-12-0) coming on for Ollie with Steve continuing at the other end unlucky to have one put down at slip (and continuing his unenviable pattern this season of collecting a drop for every wicket he takes). During this early spate of wickets Cockfosters other opener remained ever watchful having the nowse to realise that blasting it back over the bowlers would be trickier than normal with the ball sticking in the pitch. We would’ve done well to observe this guy come our innings. Sam made way for Sanjay who bowled as gooda spell (9-0-34-1) as we’ve seen from him this season using the turn on offer to consistently threaten eventually picking up the wicket of a bat who was in danger of becoming his bunny somehow surviving numerous LBW appeals and dropped chances. Jeremy Book then produced a freakish piece of groundwork fielding the ball at point with a slide tackle and then fizzing it back in with his weaker left arm to Robbie Mac to complete the formalities. Chris and Shiv comprehensively failed to set the legspin world alight in a costly spell and so we returned to where we had started 40 overs before with Steve and Ollie bowling the death. Steve’s wretched luck continued forcing him to rebuke the young batsman in at the time for having more lives than, if not a cat, certainly a particularly fortuitous marmot! Ollie helped Steve out on this front by bowling an absolute pearler at the young pretender and, whilst this did not take the wicket, it certainly set the bat up to blaze the following full bunger straight upwards. This shouldn’t have been the last wicket we took however as Cockfosters gun emerged in the final few overs and hit what at first glance appeared to be a shot destined for another county such was the force he struck it with. In actual fact because of the aforementioned sticky pitch the ball climbed and climbed with Sanjay the unfortunate charge at long off with an eternity to think about the “catch”. Sanj, as we know is an unconventional chap and his unconventional way of “catching” the ball was to use Lionel Messi chest control to cushion the ball. Most observers will note that a cricket ball is considerably more robust than a football and this may account for Sanj crumpling in a heap by the sightscreen sans ball. No prizes for guessing the unfortunate recipient of this drop was and with the remaining three balls of the innings duly dispatched by the bat the mood was not too peachy as we left the field. The opener carried his bat for 79.

So, we’d seen how to bat on this pitch ie: don’t blast through the ball as had been the approach through the sunny warm month of May because it is not that easy to time. Whilst the wickets we lost were not through a total lack of application they did start to tumble at a worryingly steady pace. Kamlesh was the first to go for 8 bowled by the opposition skipper (you’ll hear that phrase more than once in the next few hundred words). Jeremy managed to buck (the as yet not established) trend by falling victim to someone other than the captain bowled behind his legs by the previously innocuous “spinner”. Shiv fell soon after and then Mike Pratt was given out in front for 19 shortly after. Chris’ stand in mate Hugh got a first baller leaving Chris to see off the hatrick delivery (which he did with a magnificent dead bat). Sanjay and Chris managed to stop wickets falling for a while with Sanjay adopting his usual conservative style of lashing at least one delivery per over to the boundary. Drinks came and Sanjay, astutely recognising that we needed to hang on in the innings and regroup advised the skipper that under no circumstances were reckless chances to be taken (a completely superfluous piece of advice as anyone who has been bored to sleep by one of my innings will attest). It therefore came as some surprise/soul crushing horror when Sanjay tried to murder the first ball after drinks back over the bowlers head whilst in fact only affecting a simple high catch to mid-off. Chris stood at the other end fighting back tears of disbelief and forgot that there was an age to cross before the ball fell into the fielders hands and therefore unfairly forced Robbie on strike against the newly crowned deadliest bowler in Division 8. Robbie was duly stumped, Steve got one that stayed low and Sam was caught by a member of the now ridiculously attacking close ring. When Ollie offered TMs tormentor-in-chief a caught and bowled for his 8th wicket that was the end of that leaving the skipper stranded a tantalising 67 shy of a match saving ton.

So, bit of a low point but the 4s demonstrated that if you are going lose, lose spectacularly and make sure you lose as a team which we duly did. So league leaders next week…

Cockfosters III Batting
Player name Runs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 6 wickets
0
214 (0.0 overs)
Williams Not Out  79
Edwards Bowled  Ridout 3
Knight Caught  Lyall 8
Relo Caught  Lyall 10
Vinor Run out  Book/McDougal 1
Dean Caught  Patnaik 29
Levy Caught  Ridout 15
Hutchins Not Out  41
Worley  
Babway  
Elred  

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Steve Lyall19.0474237.003.89
Oliver Ridout11.0238219.003.45
Sam Moore6.021200.002.00
Sanjay Patnaik9.0034134.003.78
Chris Benn5.002700.005.40
Shivan Vaya3.001300.004.33

Totteridge Millhillians Cricket Club 4th XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 10 wickets
0
129
(0.0 overs)		    
Michael Pratt Lbw  J.Worley 19
Kamlesh Bharadia Bowled  J.Worley 8
Jeremy Book Bowled  S.Babwah 5 1
Shivan Vaya Caught  J.Worley 6
Sanjay Patnaik Caught  J.Worley 22 1
A.N. Other Bowled  J.Worley 0
Chris Benn Not Out  33 1
Rob McDougall Stumped  J.Worley 0 1
Steve Lyall Bowled  J.Dean 5
Sam Moore Caught  J.Worley 4
Oliver Ridout Caught  J.Worley 5

Cockfosters III Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
S.Babwah6.0115115.002.50
J.Worley18.124986.132.70
C.Hutchins5.011800.003.60
J.Dean3.0018118.006.00
G.Elrod4.011400.003.50