ODCUACO won the toss and elected to bat at a sunny Park Langley on a pitch that had seen a lot of runs the previous week. Hassan and Brown M opened the bowling together for the first time this season, Hassan bowling downhill with the wind behind him following a payment of some description to the skipper in the pavilion beforehand (the exact nature of which has not been divulged, but Hassan looked a little green afterwards and unsure as to whether the price was worth paying whilst JGW looked like the cat that got the cream – draw your own conclusions).
There followed a probing spell from both ends which while wicketless left ODCUACO bogged down at 30 without loss after 16 of the 40 overs with the edge of the bat being passed on numerous occasions and a difficult chance being put down behind the stumps. The batsmen were increasingly concerned by the two-paced nature of the pitch and a few well-directed bouncers. You will be pleased and no doubt surprised to learn that there were no wides bowled during this time.
The breakthrough came after Perera scared the living crap out of ODCUACO with a delivery that pitched by Bill’s feet and proceeded to zero into the batman’s head at great pace from a whippy action following a gentle stroll to the popping crease. Wickets then proceeded to fall at regular intervals as none of the ODCUACO batsmen could make up their minds on playing forward or back and were undone accordingly with a number of excellent catches being taken. Perera and Chandra took the bulk of the wickets with Gunders chipping in with a couple. There was also a very promising spell from a young leggie, Kenna (I think), which bodes well. ODCUACO eventually limped to 118 for 9 from their 40 overs.
Following a fairly awful tea (how do these people have the bare-faced cheek to charge £35 for this rubbish) the reply began. With a batting line-up boasting Brown S, Curling and Becker it looked like we would knock the runs off with ease. Little did we know that the batsmen had secretly agreed to take up the challenge of discovering who could get out to the worst shot for the least amount of runs in the shortest possible time. Sellers may have an excuse in that his LBW looked a touch high, but you make your own luck when you look to pull a length ball on middle and off into the next county when you have been in for about 10 seconds. However, 2 balls later, Lance took the lead when he was caught in three minds as to where to deposit a rank-long hop 4 feet outside off, by the time he had made his mind up he had succeeded in lollipopping it into the hands of the slip fielder. Never fear Dale was on his way to win the competition. His first delivery was met with a studious forward defensive, then, having decided that he had played himself in, Dale felt that we needed to up the run-rate (we needed about 100 off 35 overs) and proceeded to try and smack his second ball over the top, didn’t get to the pitch and produced a skier. After Abbott was bowled playing across the line in the next over things were looking decidedly grim at 18 for 4.
Enter Sasi, looking like a disheveled sheep after trying to tumble-dry his pure wool jumper, who, quite simply, played a fantastic innings. Mixing stout defence and controlled aggression, he smacked 60-odd not out including three mammoth straight sixes. Given excellent support by Kenna and Hass, Sasi engineered victory for C&C in the 27th over by five wickets.
We will need to bat better as a team in the league if we are going to continue our run of success. However, it was good to play a fellow team from the 2nd division to gauge the step up that will be required this year. With a number of talented new faces and the prospect of some quality cricketers filtering down from the firsts this was a bright result the week before the campaign begins in earnest.
Matthew Brown
The team was as follows:
S. Brown
J. Abbott
L. Curling
D. Becker (Wkt)
Sasi
Kenna
Hassan Khan
B. Perera
Bala Chandra
J. Gundry-White (Capt)
M. Brown
ODCUACO 118-9 (40 overs)
C&CCC 120-5 (27 overs)