Catford & Cyphers Cavaliers 166-7 from 37 Overs

After being a little critical of our previous performances I have can have no criticism of this excellent team performance whereby we recorded our first win of the season.

Having lost the toss for the third time in a row, unlike that star “Tosser” who Captains the Third XI, we were condemned to field first on an 80 degree plus afternoon whilst the opposition batted to tea. The team stuck excellently to the task and controlled the opposition effectively throughout thanks to some excellent bowling and fielding despite having a stand in keeper called Atkinson who conceded 11 byes. The ground fielding was excellent and whilst everybody worked hard I must make mention Milind Shirke and Asam Mohammed who together with Bal and Siva enabled us to always pressurise the batsman who were unable to pick up any easy runs and catches for Richard Coles, Asam and Chris Atkinson.

Micky Johnson bowled 8 Overs for 9 runs and deserved the wicket of the opposition opening bat several times including at least one good lbw shout. The guy went on to get 101not out of the opposition total of 162. Richard Coles was again his steady opening partner with 10 Overs of testing off spin picking up one wicket. We then continued the mixed approach with Chris Wright wheeling away for 2-46 from 11 Overs with his legspin which merited 5 wickets as 3 catches went down off his bowling. The seam bowling was continued at the other end with Siva, Bal and Asam in turn taking over from Micky. All 3 bowled accurately and Siva and Asam picked up the other wickets.to fall.

Throughout most of the innings we had one of three youngsters fielding for us as Sam Longstone (aged11) and Richard Atkinson(9) and Sal (Bals mate)(13) fielded in turn till 4.40pm when Wicketkeeper Kishore concluded his mystrey tour of Dulwich Cricket Grounds by arriving 3 hours late and taking the field for the last 10 minutes of the innings.

In this time game with tea between innings, we batted after tea and Richard Coles 12 and Robert Dwobeng 15 kept us up with the clock in the first few Overs after losing an early wicket. We were 57 for 3 after 18 Overs when the last 20 Overs were called.Yash Rangineni had played himself in and was dispatching the bad ball (13 fours). Unfortunately wickets fell regularly so that with 11 Overs to go we were 101 for 7 and the opposition sensed a win. The Captain then joined Yash and apart from a sharp single to Short Fine Leg which nearly sent Yash back to the Pavillion the skipper supported Yash as he moved to his maiden 50 and the score edged up to 130 with 4 Overs left.

The Opposition bought back their two main wicket takers but a couple of sound blows from Yash (70NO) and the Chris Atkinson (18NO) completed a 65 run unbroken partnership in 10 Overs and took us home with 36 in 3 Overs giving us victory with an Over to spare. Not only was this a good win the game was played in a good spirit thoroughout and the opposition appreciated we had paced out game intelligently.

This was an ideal Cavaliers fixture for the future especially as the opposition have a gap in their list for next year on this date.

Chris Atkinson

Cavaliers Captain