The real big match

Top o’ the league … was there any other cricket played at the weekend?

The great TMCC 3s rumble on with now 6 on the bounce, 7 wins out of 10, and those early season travails, ten-man teams, have been put well and truly behind us. Oh, and I gather there was a big game of some sort on the Sunday. So I hear.

Well, to Saturday, and with 1st v 2nd in the table a major clash, like Liverpool v City, like Sarries v Exeter, looked on the cards. But … just celebrate, this is league cricket, with NFA as I may have been wont to say a few years ago.

The new firm of Steve and Rudra continued their early wickets routine, with … early wickets. Rudy, good pace and a glove to Ahsan: Steve, swinging ball popped up to cover. Meanwhile no runs were being scored – almost literally, none. A few wides were the principal scoring method, Rudy only conceding 1 run off the bat in his 6 over spell, while Steve took a blow with 6-4-5-1 under his belt.

Golden Arm struck again with his very first ball, Neil prompting old mate Blackwell to pop up a return catch immediately … Charles got in on the act with a classic left-arm inswing LB … then a fine catch by Rudy with his telescopic arm gave Chas his second … Neil cleaned up no.4’s stumps when he tried to break out of the stranglehold … second spell for SL saw TMCC old boy Waqas LB to a straight one, then an attempted big yahoo only saw it spin into the safe hands of Sathees. Ultimate strike bowler Krunal decided ‘enough was enough’ and promptly took out two in two, his only two – perhaps the first was a no-ball, but the umpire saw it differently, and no.11 was clean bowled with a flurry of limbs.
48 was the total in 30.2 overs, with wides comfortably the top scorer, on 14, and the bowling figures deserve reproducing:

Steve Lyall 9-5-9-3
Rudra Bhoja 6-2-8-1
Neil Dennison 7-3-8-2
Charles Plummer 7-2-10-2
Eklavya Sharma 3-2-5-0
Krunal Nirban 0.2-0-0-2

Quick turnaround, X on strike, a new fast bowler charging in off a long run – stumps akimbo and X is gorn. However Ahsan knew that the best thing to do with a small target is to smash it and smash it he duly did with a very rapid 35, minor annoyance that he couldn’t be there at the end, but Bobbie stepped up and with a nice 15* he and Charles had the honour of being the not-out batsman when we wrapped up the 30 shortly after 4.00. After tea, post-match, we headed back to HQ to watch the 1s.

Q: What are we …?