Bathford Vs Venturers, Sunday September 13th

Venturers 225-3, Bathford 162-3

Sometimes we just get it right. The first thing we got right was to persuade Bruce to be captain, rather than Gregory or Jaideep. The next thing was that Bruce won the toss. Then he chose to bat.

In fact we had got something right even before that. Being slightly short of players this year in the enforced absence of the usual subcontinental enthusiasts, we have relied not only on Ritvij but also on his friends, and very reliable they are too. This time Ritvij opened the batting with one of them, Toby, and they jogged along comfortably at seven an over without making any particular effort. Ritvij seemed to have more of the strike, which if anything slowed the scoring slightly; but the Bathford slope rewards timing and placement rather than force, which suits Ritvij’s style. A bundle of extras, and one or two misfields, helped us along. Both batsmen, in fact, might have been caught early on, though neither was more than a half-chance. Bathford tried seven bowlers, all competent, to little effect. Steve Dent, who sometimes plays for us, was not one of them. He was expected to bowl but injured himself in the field early on. He was asked whether he wanted to go off, but it takes a lot to remove Steve from a cricket field and he stayed where he was.

We had agreed 35 overs a side, six overs per bowler (we also had plenty) and a retirement-at-50 rule, and this last deprived us of Ritvij after thirteen or fourteen overs. Josh replaced him and the scoring slowed for a while, perhaps through better bowling as much as anything to do with the batsmen. It was a surprise, though, when Toby miscued to mid-on shortly before the drinks break after eighteen overs. Charlie, who replaced him, took a while to get going and Josh was not really fluent at this stage either. But we had enough runs to be able to take our time, and gradually the pace increased. Josh was also retired in due course, but Jaideep, after a scratchy start, took over efficiently and even ran a couple of hard twos. Only in the very last over did we let things slide: Jaideep swiped at the first ball and missed it, and later in the over Charlie sent one straight up in the air. Farooq got a few, and CB scrambled a leg-bye off the last ball.

225 sounded like a lot of runs but the wicket was good and the slope coule be readily exploited by a well-set batsman. The retirement rule would prevent things getting completely out of hand but we couldn’t be sure of winning just on the basis of the score we had. Certainly not when the first ball, not taken cleanly by Alex, trickled into the helmet before Jaideep could pick either up. A misfield at the bottom of the hill turned a single into four, and a fumble elsewhere gave away one. Those nine runs accounted for a substantial proportion of those scored before the first handwashing, though. CB was quick and Imran, back at his best for the first time this year, was very awkward. He missed a return catch that he would probably have caught if he had had more opportunity to play, and a ball from CB certainly hit something on its way to Alex. The umpire, quite possibly correctly, thought it was a pad flap. Otherwise the openers were comfortable, but at the cost of not scoring. Only Imran’s last over was expensive.

With wickets in hand, though, a breakout was still possible. Toby offered no such opportunity. Gregory did, in theory; but, like Imran, he was bowling well for the first and therefore only time this year. Some ambitious swipes came to nothing. The younger, left-handed, opener, whose running between the wickets had been less than ambitious, declined to push for a third on Bruce’s throw. Although that was probably a good decision in itself, his explanation to his partner (whose runs they were) that he wanted the strike at the beginning of Gregory’s next over may not have been very well received. It looked even less impressive when he aimed a huge slog-sweep at Gregory’s next ball, missed it completely and was hit on the back leg. The captain came next. He had fielded well, captained efficiently, and bowled rapidly if a bit erratically: we suspected that he could also bat. He played the spin cautiously, and was only slightly more adventurous at Toby’s end. He also announced, audibly to us, a plan: to avoid getting out in the next few overs and then push on. So Gregory tossed one up to test his self-denial, and he hit it straight into Farooq’s hands. That was that, really. The right-handed opened got to fifty and retired, but by then they had far too much to do. Toby flicked the off stump without dislodging a bail. The only other wicket was taken by Ritvij: the batsman hit a straight long hop to CB at square leg, who was the only fieldsman within sixty degrees either way but didn’t have to move to catch it. This was not typical of Ritvij’s bowling, which was otherwise well directed. The next pair of batsmen had a cheerful swing and hit some high balls that landed nowhere, but nothing much happened and we won very easily in the end.