Hay Hill Vs Venturers, Wednesday June 5th

Venturers 140-3, Hay Hill 141-4

The Glasshouse ground, where this match was played, is further along the same road as Sulis, and in a rather similar situation, but it is less open, with houses on three sides. It is a little less well maintained, the outfield being uneven, but the facilities are better. There is nothing much wrong with the pitch but the odd ball kept a bit low. That was just as well, because John edged the first ball of the match to the keeper and it didn’t carry to her. It wasn’t long before Chris did the same thing, with less luck, and for a long time after that John and Rohit occupied the crease. They didn’t score very freely, especially against the quicker bowlers, but they ran well between the wickets and hit what bad balls there were. Rohit also edged to the keeper, but it arrived at an awkward height and she clanged it, and he later got away with a miscue into the offside that Hay Hill’s captain misjudged. Otherwise he was comfortable, but John, who timed the ball better, scored the bulk of the runs. With about six overs left, Hay Hill brought on their wrist-spinner, who is very slow and not very accurate, and therefore hittable, but does spin it. John struck a big six against the spin and was caught in the deep when he tried to do it again. Kevin missed altogether and was leg before. Saad, improvising even against the quicker bowlers, and Rohit brought the score to something defensible.

As our bowling has been fairly reliable this season, we might have hoped to defend it, but we were one bowler short really. We had none of our regular keepers, so Simon kept: he did it quite well (it is not a completely unfamiliar role to him) but he couldn’t bowl. Aby was mostly accurate and always hostile, and was treated with respect, but Siddanth, though he didn’t bowl badly, strayed down leg too often. Gregory re-established enough control at that end to allow Prasanth, who gets wickets but can be expensive, to be risked at the other. It paid off: Prasanth broke the opening partnership with a smart return catch. Ian Gillard, playing against us, gave a second but very hard return catch to Kevin, who did well even to stop it but couldn’t hold on, but shortly afterwards he attacked Gregory and was stumped. At this point the run rate was a bit higher than Hay Hill would have liked, but Gregory and Aby were both out of overs and they had Dan to bat for them. Dan has a batting average conveniently measured in parsecs, although his average against us over several years is a more modest twenty-five or so, and he hits hard. He did that first to Kevin and then to Arvind, and as his partner was not quiet either we were on the verge of losing when he lofted the fifth ball of the nineteenth over down to long-on. Rohit called for it confidently but somehow dropped it, and they ran two, leaving themselves three to get from seven balls. But the drop cost only those two runs, because Dan ignored the next ball and never got on strike again. Instead, his partner tried to finish the match by hitting Siddanth over extra cover, who was John: not a good plan, as John is tall and has a safe pair of hands. The new batsman dug out Siddanth’s first attempt at a yorker but not his second, and suddenly they needed three from three balls, with the set batsman at the non-striker’s end. The new batsman was the wrist spinner. Siddanth lost his line and gave away a wide, and then next ball was firmly cut to third man for the necessary two. We had, at least, run them close.

Scorecard <table id="scorecardframe"> <tr> <td> <table id="scorecard"><tr> <td>John C</td> <td> 42 (1 ct) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Chris M</td> <td> 0 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Rohit</td> <td> 43 n. o. </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Kevin</td> <td> 14 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Saad</td> <td> 17 n. o. </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Arvind</td> <td> d. n. b. </td> </tr><tr> <td>Siddhant</td> <td> d. n. b. </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Prashanth</td> <td> d. n. b. </td> </tr><tr> <td>Any John</td> <td> d. n. b. </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Simon</td> <td> d. n. b. (1 st) </td> </tr><tr> <td>Gregory</td> <td> d. n. b. </td> </tr></table></td><td class="gap"></td><td style="width:250"><table id="scorecard"> <tr> <td>Siddhant</td> <td> 3.4-0-34-2 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Aby John</td> <td> 4-1-16-0 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Kevin</td> <td> 4-0-33-0 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Gregory</td> <td> 4-0-17-1 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Prashanth</td> <td> 2-0-17-1 </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Arvind</td> <td> 2-0-20-0 </td> </tr></table> </td> </tr> </table>