Priston vs Venturers, Sunday May 1st

Venturers 147, Priston 115

Rather than the usual 40 overs a side we played by the Laws, with a gentleman's agreement to declare at tea and the match to end 20 overs after 6:30, in a draw if not previously decided. This made almost no difference to what happened.

Chris and Richard (drafted in at short notice) opened and made a brisk start against accurate inswing from one end and mostly inaccurate leg-spin from the other. Eventually the inswing went straight on, taking Chris's off stump with it, and Ranju this time unpacked the box set immediately, with a whistling off-slog. As before he then started to play in a more orthodox way, but still hitting hard when the opportunity arose, and walking down the pitch even to the rapid but inaccurate bowler who, but for a South African accent, must have reminded him of himself. Ranju doesn't hit at everything, though, and on one of these expeditions down the pitch he simply got his pads in the way. He then called Richard, who had quite a bit further to go than he did, for a single: they completed it, but Richard injured himself in the process and the run didn't even count as Ranju had offered no shot.

Richard hobbled off, to be replaced by Shashank, who looked calm but was soon leg before. He seemed annoyed, presumably with himself: Ranju wouldn't have encouraged him to use a UDRS referral. Soon after that, Ranju remembered another of his cricket videos. He hadn't remembered this one quite right, though. It is a mistake to perform the sprinkler dance when actually batting.

Soon after Ranju's stumps had been put back the drinks interval arrived and Gregory, who had been umpiring, handed over to Chris and strolled off. Ten minutes later, Simon was waving frantically at him to come back, as Ilyas and Kevin had got themselves out and Santha was just doing the same. Simon jogged out to the middle and stayed just long enough for Gregory to get his pads on before also getting himself out, and Gregory, after edging a four, was hit on the right toe by a straight ball. Alex watched all this calmly from the other end. Steve, unlike everybody else, was also calm, but they didn't make much progress. When Steve did get out, Richard came back with a runner and managed another dozen or so before Alex succumbed.

Seeing how easily we had reached a hundred, with a fast outfield and short straight boundaries, we thought 147 far too few; moreover, by getting bowled out before half past four (in 32 overs) we had handed them an extra twenty minutes or so to get the runs in. We should have to bowl them out and we needed an early wicket. The left-handed opener turned Ranju out to long leg and called for a second, but his slower partner was beaten by Santha's throw to the far end, not realising the danger until it was too late. The tall South African seemed very comfortable with Ranju's pace and Simon decided to try him with some spin before he settled. Gregory helped him and his partner settle, with a full toss and two long hops, and the match was going away from us very fast. Santha at least kept things quieter at the other end.

Simon, after some thought, gave Gregory a second over, with the left-hander on strike. He played three straight balls back to the bowler and hacked wildly at the slightly wider fourth, offering a simple catch. Fortunately for us he offered it to Kevin. So Gregory stayed on, and continued to bowl well to left-handers only, but soon bowled the last of them. Meanwhile the South African had taken a liking to Ilyas's bowling, although there was nothing wrong with it. We were starting to lose quickly again when he tried to attack Gregory's bowling, because there was plenty wrong with it, too, and missed a straight full toss. Alban, fielding for the injured Richard, walked up from fine leg and remarked "That was rather a bad ball", which indeed it was.

Bad bowling or not, we were through most of the batting by now. Kevin took over from Ilyas and in the next few overs he and Gregory simply clean bowled all the remaining Priston batsman. There was a moment of alarm when Gregory reverted to the style of his opening over, giving Priston ten runs and giving Alban the chance to demonstrate the sliding stop, which none of us ever try to copy from Ranju's box sets. There was a moment of confusion when the last dangerous batsman was bowled so gently by Gregory that nobody quite saw it happen, but there was the off bail on the ground and Alex hadn't anything to do with it. The last wicket fell to the fourth ball of the twentieth over (Gregory's ninth, the only place where the rules made a difference) and we were in the pub before seven.

Fixtures & Results 2011