Bradford 39 Vs Venturers, Saturday September 7th

Venturers 92; Bradford 39 93-5

This was a day of variously spelt Alsops: James, of Bradford 39; Duncan, of Broughton Gifford, who kept wicket for us; and finally, Marin, who conducted the Last Night in the evening. She didn’t appear at Victory Field, though. Nor did Rohit, whose back gave out in the morning, but Rasesh did. Duncan’s son would have liked to join us but in the end wasn’t able to, so we were in the end one short.

We started a bit late. We had been told 1:30, but Bradford 39 had been told 2:00 and weren’t all there by then because it is impossible to park on a Saturday. So we decided to play a 20-over match and then see what the weather was like. In the event we played a 10-over slosh after tea.

The relatively serious match started with Gregory, reluctantly acting as captain, winning the toss and choosing to bat. Last time we did that an opening batsman ran himself out first ball. This time, Nikhil went one better, running himself without facing a ball at all, on his Venturer’s debut, and ending all doubts about whether his level of cricket was suitable for us. The single that Agam called for was sharp but gettable with a prompt response. Chris and Agam consolidated but were unable to get much off Dan, whose labelling is still clear. Chris eventually lost patience and swiped. Rasesh, equally clearly labelled and batting, as directed by his shirt, at 4, was briefly violent and effective, but he got a hopeless shooter, and it was straight. Bhavin hit a six and gave Agam some support, but once Agam was out it was straight downhill, although Anand lost the ball in the hedge at the very end.

Still, Agam and Rasesh had given us something to bowl at. Anand removed James Alsop fairly early on, but Aby was not at his best. Gregory decided to have a go himself and was twice hit over long-off by the other opener, an aggressive left-hander off whom we missed a hard stumping. He also got two wickets, both with bad balls. At the other end Agam bowled much better, with less luck. The left-hander hit well but was fortunate in some ways - for example, the shooter that he got just missed the stumps. Eventually Agam toppled him, inducing a catch to mid-on. By then our only chance was that Prasanth would have one of his unreasonably effective days. He didn’t, and that was that.

The ten-over slog was only an approximation to cricket. Nikhil took a good catch off his own bowling and Anand signed off with two wickets in two balls, both clean bowled. His hat-trick ball was the last of the innings, and the left-handed opener who had done so much damage in the first match launched everything at it, but missed. It wasn’t near the stumps, so we trooped off and then tried to get 65 in ten overs ourselves. At one time it looked possible, but we couldn’t give Rasesh enough of the strike and, amid falling rain, nobody else could score fast enough.

Scorecards: Match 1 <table id="scorecardframe"> <tr> <td> <table id="scorecard"><tr> <td>Agam</td> <td> 34 (1ct) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Nikhil</td> <td> 0 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Chris S</td> <td> 34 (1ct) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Rasesh</td> <td> 13 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Bhavin</td> <td> 7 n.o. </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Aby</td> <td> 11 n.o. </td> </tr><tr> <td>Prasanth</td> <td> 11 n.o. </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Duncan</td> <td> 0 </td> </tr><tr> <td>Anand</td> <td> 7 (1ct) </td> </tr><tr class="alt"> <td>Gregory</td> <td> 1 n.o. </td> </tr><tr> <td></td> <td> </td> </tr></table></td><td class="gap"></td><td style="width:250"><table id="scorecard">