Southstoke CC Vs Venturers, Sunday May 17th

Venturers 157-10 (39), Southstoke 144-6 (31)

Play-Cricket Results

Cold again. We agreed to play a time game, i.e. one with a draw, over 70 overs. Josh asserted that every time game there has ever been results in a draw, which does not accord with the experience of those who have played a lot of them. However, 70 overs is not really enough unless the pitch is bad: this time, over limit would have been better.

In handing over Josh, we had lent our wicketkeeper to Southstoke, who already had one. We also lent them Ajeet and Olly playing for them as the Southstoke member which could also have backfired badly. In the event all three of them performed capably but not decisively: anyway, without them there would have been no game. But these choices meant that Siddhant had to keep wicket for us, which nobody, especially not Siddhant, really liked.

We batted, because Imran was worried about the light, but really either decision would have been reasonable. Imran’s plan was to score rapidly and declare after about 32 overs, to give ourselves time to bowl them out, and we did none of those things. Jaideep and Mizan put together a solid but rather slow opening partnership, without which we might have collapsed altogether. It was largely uneventful. Bruce gave Jaideep not out for a caught at the wicket appeal under slightly curious circumstances: some people had heard a sound and some had not, but several of those who had thought that the ball was past the bat by then, so Bruce was almost certainly right. It was one of only three significant interventions Bruce made in the match: the second was to give Siddhant out stumped, after Jaideep had been bowled by an accurate slow left-armer. Again the circumstances were a bit curious: the keeper essentially fumbled the ball into the stumps and the question was whether his gloves or the ball had dislodged the bails. We think Bruce got that one right too. Immediately afterwards Joji also got bowled, first ball.

Jonathan and Mizan rebuilt slowly, with some defensive support from Charlie, but it was Matt and Naveen who finally injected some pace into the innings. We clearly still didn’t have enough runs when Matt was out, quickly followed by Imran, but Bruce and later Gregory held an end up long enough for Naveen to do something useful. Eventualy Gregory was bowled having a swipe at the last ball of the 39th over, because he suspected that Imran was going to declare anyway. In fact Naveen was on 45 and Imran would have batted on for another over, but neither batsman knew that.

Anyway, leaving only 31 overs to make 158 was already quite steep. Josh started rapidly, and made 23 out of 24 (the other being a bye) before Imran bowled him. Mizan and Joji kept the scoring under control, and Mizan bowled the other opener. Imran tried Gregory, who seemed stiff and merely lobbed the ball up (he later turned out to have injured his shoulder). He was hit all over the place, and replaced by Jonathan, who was hit nowhere. When Jonathan did bowl a bad ball, the batsman scooped a catch to Jaideep, and with Mizan making progress at the other end we briefly imagined winning.

It didn’t last long: the left-arm bowler arrived and played a sensible but not threatening innings that pretty much shut the game down. His partner’s attempt to keep it open were thwarted by Mizan, Naveen and some capable fielding (Bruce’s third contribution was a fine stop in the covers). Towards the end Imran tried Matt, with no results, and Gregory again, with the same results as before: the batsman who had come in at three and made over half their runs was given out LBW to Matt off the last ball of the match, but the draw had been inevitable for a while by then. Quite clearly, they had the better of the draw.