Venturers Vs Southstoke, Wednesday April 26th

Venturers 97-7, Southstoke 90-6

Five of our eleven were new to the club, as often happens at this time of year, but we managed to play well as a team and we won rather more easily than the final margin suggests. The season got off to bad start, though, when we arrived at Sulis to discover that the changing rooms and the scorebox were both locked. The changing rooms contain the toilets and the scorebox contained the stumps, so this was a serious problem. A call to Security resolved the problem of the scorebox: it is currently unclear what happened about the changing rooms. But that meant that we started late, and the upshot was that the match finished in near darkness.

Southstoke could not (and did not) complain of having to bat in the dark, though, as they had won the toss and put us in. Jaideep and Mubtasim started cautiously. Mub is Australian and found the lack of pace, bounce, sun, beer and so on a bit disconcerting. England doesn’t really do the first three at all, and we as a club don’t really do beer. Apart from anything else, this is the southwest: cider is the preferred fluid round here. But we don’t, as a club, drink: Islam and childcare are two of the reasons. It turns out to be possible to have a lot of fun on a cricket field without beer.

After half a dozen overs Jaideep was well caught by the bowler, who looked surprised. We had about 25 on the board: a decent start. The arrival of Kamalpreet meant the end of the caution and the beginning of a period of chaos. We often cause chaos on a cricket field, especially when we try to run, but this was different: it was intentional chaos. Kamal knew what he was doing, or at least what he was trying to do, but nobody else did. He played a series of scoops and flicks, interspersed with more orthodox and even defensive shots, and amd compiled 29, running all of them. He didn’t hit the ball hard, possibly reasoning that if he did he would most likely only get two anyway because of the slow outfield, and that there were safer and less strenuous ways of getting twos. Mub sometimes did hit hard, including a six when he got a full toss, and he had made rather more than half of the total of fifty when he missed a straight ball and walked off, barely glancing at Steve Dent who had turned up to umpire and was giving him out. Steve Andrews did not last long before chipping a simple catch to point, and the next few overs were occupied by an inventive stand between Siddhant, who hit the only boundary not by Mub, and Kamal. By the middle of the seventeenth over we had 88, but then Siddhant miscued a full toss to mid-on, who juggled but held on (he had caught Jaideep and dropped Kamal earlier). Mihir declined a guard and was completely in front of all the stumps when his second ball hit him. Kamal walked down the pitch so far that the wicketkeeper had plenty of time to stump him even though his first attempt to flick a bail off missed altogether; Joji got a good ball straight away; and Dinesh and Imran accumulated what they could from the last few balls.

Imran and Gregory, who have seen this kind of match before, and Kamal, who presumably hasn’t, all thought that 97 was a defendable total. They were right. It took Imran an over and a half to get back into rhythm, though he wasn’t very expensive, and Dinesh was difficult to play from the start. In the already fading light his pace and accuracy were a serious challenge, and he demolished the off stump twice in two balls in his second over. Imran cleaned up the number 4 in his last over and Gregory finally dislodged the remaining opener when he came on to replace Imran. Joji was slightly more expensive but also threatening. He induced a miscue towards mid-on but Gregory, who was nearest, had lost the ball against the dark background and had no idea where it was until too late. We switched to a pink ball soon after, which worked better for a time but later on conditions became so bad that, even so, the same thing happened to Imran. It didn’t make a lot of difference. The batters never got going even though by this time we were often just bowling again as quickly as possible to get the match over, without worrying too much about what we bowled or where the fielders were. Joji induced another miscue and Steve did see it, and caught it, and he quickly went through the next batter but that was it. The bowler who had caught Jaideep, batting in a yellow hi-vis hoodie and pink dayglo gloves, was soon the only thing that could be seen. Runs did come faster towards the end but Mihir bowled a tight over, Bruce was happy to concede ones and twos and only once conceded more, and in the last over Kamal had eighteen to defend which proved more than enough. Only a boundary off the last ball brought the margin into single figures.