Rode vs Venturers, Sunday September 2nd

Rode 181-5 Venturers 94

Last year there was a diplomatic incident at Rode, but it has been forgotten now. This year was a slightly annoyed Rode player wondered why Simon had chosen to field when only seven of his side had arrived, but that only showed he hadn’t seen us bat. The absentees were Jay, working; Gregory, giving Jay a lift; John and David, gone to the wrong village. Moreover, Gregory had the bats and pads in his car.

An opening batsman nevertheless managed to pick out one of the few fieldsman (actually David, who had just arrived), driving at Harsh. The other opener looked quite comfortable and was dominating the scoring until he got a near double-bouncer from Harsh and gave a return catch. After a short silence, Alex said “well bowled” in the tones of somebody reading a foreign language from a phrase book, and the batsman stumped off, muttering “well bowled” under his breath. This piece of luck didn’t do us any good, though. The left-hander who came next batted for the remainder of the innings, 25 overs (we were playing 35 overs each way) and hit six sixes, five twos and twenty-nine singles, but no fours at all. He was correct in defence but strongly bottom-handed when attacking, unusual for a left-hander. Gregory kept him quiet by bowling a foot outside his off stump, but Kevin, whose line was not as steady as usual, got hit into the cornfield a few times. Kevin also lacked the protection against a straight hit given by the local rules at the other end: if you hit the ball over the high netting into the housing estate, you are out. Those two bowlers chipped away at the Rode innings but eventually the left-hander found a partner and they pushed the rate up to a run a ball, despite Gaurav’s encouragingly quick left-arm bowling.

We didn’t have the batting for the chase. Chris hit a six (the grass was very long, so that was the right approach) but got bowled immediately afterwards; John looked confident for a while. After the tenth over, when David and Kevin were out in quick succession, the scoring dried up almost completely. Eventually John fell, and the innings entered a final spiral. A really good collapse requires a ridiculous run-out. Harsh was duly run out, but not ridiculously: he just failed to beat a direct hit and the credit should go entirely to the fieldsman. Paul’s run-out, on the other hand… but before that, Jay and Simon had put a slightly better face on the scoresheet. Nowhere near enough, though.