Sunday XI vs Hurlingham Oddfellows XI. 22.06.03

 

 

Hurlingham won by 6 wickets batting second.

 

Notable performances:

 

D. Golbey 98, R Pratap 52; B Chandler 5/81, Griffin 72, Blowes 67, B Perera 4/37

 

Another fantastic game of cricket, generated by 2 good sides and, I firmly believe, by limited overs win/lose format. All games should be win/lose. Okay, some would be terribly one-sided, but I am certain this format discourages the negativity of chasing sides ‘shutting up shop’, when chasing a target perceived as unattainable, often prematurely, and we would have many more exciting games as this. Some of the more senior members of the club may not agree with me, but having played for CCCC for 11 years, I am yet to be convinced of the relative merits of timed games at this level. If one side is much stronger than another, maybe they shouldn’t be playing each other! Happy to discuss!

 

Winning the toss and choosing to bat on a morning that had had quite a downpour was quite brave, but I think the right decision for the side we had out. The skipper himself decided to prove the doubting Thomas’ wrong single-handedly by a quite belligerent display on a wicket that was ‘doing a little bit’. Punishing anything short and loose, he brought up his 50 with only 3 strokes that did not reach the boundary. Two shots stand out for me, a square cut four to a ball that was close to him and bounced a touch he did well to keep down and time so well and an adjusted square-driven four to a short-of-length ball after a couple of short balls. The shot itself was class but most would not have been in position to play the shot after those balls, but such was Dave’s confidence on this day. Supported by sensible batting by old-stagers B. Dolman and R. Pratap, and some late lusty hitting by B. Perera coming back after a hamstring injury, the total of 224 from 40 overs looked a good one.

 

After last week’s superb opening bowling performance, R. Black and N. Missen mixed some good deliveries with some loose offerings to the accomplished Hurlingham opening batters. Keeping up with the required run rate of 5 and a bit per over, they mixed caution with aggression well, tucking into T. McGill in particular, who so far this season has kept control of the middle of the innings for us, with his flight and guile. The change of bowling brought in B. Perera, who continued our trend of mixing good with loose stuff. This was exemplified in his wickets, bowling two with absolute peaches to uproot entrenched batsmen, and getting a couple with long hops. Unfortunately for us, some of the long hops also disappeared to the pavilion boundary as they did for a returning R. Black, who could not find his range immediately. The target was chased down with just over one over to spare.

 

Never mind, the spirit of both sides was superb, and again this sort of game is what Sunday cricket is all about. Bring on next weekend!

 

Rohit Pratap

 23.06.03