Venturers Vs Star Midweek, Wednesday July 27th

Star 147-7, Venturers 93-7

Ian C removed one opener at once and the other swung mightily for a while before he and his new partner both got bowled by Imran, who didn’t panic.The swinging had got them off to a fairly fast start, though, despite Ian’s great accuracy. A long partnership followed involving Ian G, playing against us, but at a fairly slow rate, largely because Ian was determined not to get stumped off Gregory as happened last time he played against us. He succeeded, but at the cost of slow scoring, and Pratik at the other end gave little away. A run-out broke the partnership in the end, but after Gregory and Pratik ran out of overs Ian became less inhibited and with his new partner launched an attack on Chris and Bruce, cut short when he ran himself out for 49. The other batsman broke a window in the derelict house at square leg, but Bruce kept the lid on at the end with two wickets in the final over, a splendid catch in the deep by Matt and a more straightforward one at cover by Duncan. Even so, they had made perhaps twenty more than we would have liked.

What sank us, though, was their bowling. Matt and Chris survived for a long time, making nineteen each, but were never able to get the ball away - in any case, the mower had broken down and the ball stopped quickly in the uncut outfield. Pratik was then out first ball, Abishek hit one four and then missed, and Charlie gave Ian G a chance to emulated Matt’s catching in the deep. Simon, accompanied quietly by first Ian C and then Duncan, gave us some respectability but we were a long way off.