Venturers Vs Rode, Sunday June 2nd

Rode 174, Venturers 70

We bowled well. Only Akhil bowled very well, but everybody else was at least competent and mostly rather better than that. That we still lost by a huge margin was partly because of some less than perfect catching, but mainly because the only batsman who threatened to make any runs was Rasesh, and he ran himself out.

We didn’t even drop any easy catches. There were two of those, and Rasesh, at the start of the innings, and Anand, at the end, caught them. But there were about ten harder but catchable ones, and we caught only three of them: the ones that went to Simon or Agam. We wouldn’t expect to catch all of those, so no individual need feel embarrassed, but with average luck we would have caught six or seven, and that would have left us with maybe thirty fewer runs to chase. We would have got nowhere near that, either.

It started well enough, with an opener swatting at a ball from Akhil and giving a simple catch to cover. The new batsman is a shaky starter but very dangerous when he gets going, and he could easily have been out early on in several ways. We didn’t drop him, though; at least, not then, but Akhil went past his outside edge several times, he twice inside-edged Anand past his leg stump and he twice miscued into empty space. The other opener looked more settled but found scoring difficult, and when Anand bowled him a rare full toss, he top-edged it, fortunately to Simon. With the ball still swinging, Simon opted for Yameen and Aby, rather than Gregory and himself, as the first-change bowlers, and (after a wild start from Aby) they justified that, Yameen bowling the number 4, who was beginning to be threatening and had probably been dropped a couple of times, and having his replacement well caught by Agam at slip. The fifth-wicket partnership proved tougher to break and was quite productive, and quite rapidly. When we did break it, with Simon’s second catch as the batsman lofted Gregory down the ground again (previous outcomes: one six, one drop), we simply got the Rode captain, who shepherded the tail well after Akhil had at last bowled the number 3. There was no final acceleration, though, as Gregory, Aby and Simon finished the innings off, the Rode captain falling to one of Alex’s less elegant stumpings off a wide from Simon. Around here we also missed a very easy run-out, but generally our ground fielding was good.

Chris took five comfortable runs off the off-spinner who opened the bowling for Rode, and succumbed immediately to a top-edged pull at the other end. Agam walked too far across his stumps and was bowled behind his legs. Saad picked out cover. A collapse was in progress. Rasesh, seeing the ball well and hitting hard, was simply urging his partners to stay in and watch the ball, and Akhil listened to him and played carefully. If they could stay together we had a chance, as the run rate was not high. At this point, Rasesh forgot his own advice and called Akhil for a run when the wicket-keeper. Had he watched the ball he would have seen that it had gone straight into the path of short fine leg, who had all three stumps to aim at from about ten yards away. He hit them; and that, pretty much, was that. Yameen also watched the ball and tried to stay in, but there was no flow of runs any more. After a while the the collapse resumed: Akhil popped a return catch, Yameen picked out a fieldsman and so, after a while, did Alex. Simon, dissuaded by their protests from trying to bat below Gregory or Anand, but still batting below Aby, got a good ball, and Aby was left stranded (on nought, despite batting at number eight) after regulation ducks from the last two.

Scorecard <table id="scorecardframe"> <tr> <td> <table id="scorecard"><tr> <td>Agam</td> <td> 0 (1 ct) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Chris</td> <td> 5 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Rasesh</td> <td> 19 (1 ct) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Saad</td> <td> 3 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Akhil</td> <td> 10 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Yameen</td> <td> 9 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Alex</td> <td> 10 (1 st) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Aby</td> <td> 0 n. o. </td> </tr><tr> <td>Simon</td> <td> 6 (2 ct) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Gregory</td> <td> 0 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Anand</td> <td> 0 (1 ct) </td> </tr></table></td><td class="gap"></td><td style="width:250"><table id="scorecard"> <tr> <td>Akhil</td> <td> 8-4-20-2 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Anand</td> <td> 8-0-36-1 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Yameen</td> <td> 8-0-25-2 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Aby</td> <td> 6-1-31-1 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Gregory</td> <td> 8-0-43-2 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Simon</td> <td> 1.1-0-10-2 </td> </tr></table> </td> </tr> </table>