Cavaliers Vs Norwood Exiles. 5th July 2003
Norwood 160 off 40.5overs.
Catford Cyphers 124-8 off
40overs
Match Drawn
After a two week
gap due to lack of transport and
cancellation of a fixture by Catford Wanderers the Cavaliers played their seventh
game this season. Due to late call ups for 4 players to higher things (two on Friday night and two on Saturday)
only 4 of the side who left the field with a win v Centymca on 14th
June took the field on 5th
July.
Notwithstanding
these absences and others missing from holidays and injury this hastily patched
together team acquitted itself very well.With Bill Perera coming on first change and some good fielding we
proceeded to bowl a strong Norwood side out. Richard Coles who opened with
Siva had just reward for his consistent
performances all season with 4-54 off 15 consecutive overs. Siva in two spells took 4-44 off 13.5 overs
and Bill Perera took 2-32 off 10 overs.
The catching was
excellent with two catches for Nilos with one each by Amit Patel on his debut
for the Cavaliers on promotion from the Under 15`s and Keeper Kishore who deflected a flick off the bat upwards
as it passed and
caught the rebound off Bill Perera.
The Captain found
himself taking two contrasting good catches. The first was a skied straight hit caught at above head
height running from Mid Off to about 20 yards behind the bowler to catch
the opposition Captain who was striking the ball well and had made 32. This
made Norwood 74-4. He then sprained his
ankle shortly afterwards as he landed after taking a high return over the
stumps at the bowlers end and after several minutes lying on the ground in agony retired to Slip and left Mike Stevens
to Captain. Unusually the injured player still had a major role to play. The
opposition No 5 having struck 38 sliced an attempted drive off Siva and the
Captain dived to his right to hang on to a firm edge with a 2 handed slip catch
to reduce the opposition to 136-8.
After tea the
Captain returned to open with Mike Stevens in gloomy conditions with no
sidescreen and no runner against the
opposition No 5 bat who at 20 years old was also an accomplished outswing fast bowler called Patel who bowled 15
consecutive overs to take 5 –32. The Captain batted through 22 overs whilst wickets
tumbled. He finally was lbw to Patel in
the view of the opposition umpire for
23 out of 38-6 and finish second top scorer in the innings outscoring even “Mr
Extras”. After being reduced to 46-7,
this proved to be the peak of the opposition domination as first Bill Perera
with 13 and then Kishore with 36NO pushed the score along whilst Richard Coles
16NO took over the anchor role from Chris Atkinson. As a result we finished on
top of a tired bowling attack with
Patel too tired to return in the last 10 overs.
With 5 players under
16 in this team the result was a
creditable achievement against a team the Third Eleven have failed to beat over
the last 6 years. This ensured the Clubs 4 Saturday teams whose resources were
severely stretched this week all remained unbeaten recording 2 wins and 2
draws. Hopefully I will be fit for the
next game as we are likely to be depleted by non availability of Bill Perera
and Mike Stevens whilst Chris Wright and Robert Dwobeng are both unvaiable for
a number of weeks.
Chris Atkinson
Cavaliers Captain
6th July 2003