Venturers Vs Star, Wednesday July 21st

The Star 86, Venturers 46-7

The match was completely dominated by the bowlers, as long as they didn’t have to catch. Four return catches went down, all involving the Star’s captain, Harjeet. One of them went to one of his own clubmates because the Star, not for the first time this year, had lent us players. One of them opened the bowling for us with Farooq, as CB was slightly delayed, and collected two wickets as well as missing that (hard) catch off his own bowling. One was bowled, the other given out LBW as the ball ran towards fine leg with Ian in pursuit. The batsman seemed very surprised, apparently convinced that the ball would have missed leg; but it should be remembered in these cases that the batsman’s opinion of where the ball was is to some extent discredited. He has, after all, just missed it. None of us apart from the bowler had a clear view.

Harjeet’s approach was violent (which does not at all match his personality) and he also drove one back at Gregory, who just about got a hand on it; but soon after that he retired bored, and CB bowled Mark Shearman, who was the only other batsman to get any runs. In fact eight of the batsmen were bowled. There was one more in each of CB’s overs; two separate Ollies swung wildly at straight balls from Gregory; and when CB ran out of overs, Alex simply continued the sequence. That allowed Harjeet to unretire but the other loaned player bowled one ball to him and he called his hapless partner for a quick single. CB, now at midwicket, hit the stumps one more time and that was that.

We knew 87 wouldn’t be a pushover, but we expected to get somewhere near. We think that 46-7 may be our lowest score in a complete innings without actually being bowled out. A couple of years ago against the same opponents there was a similar scoreline but with twenty more runs each, and a long time ago we comfortably defended 69 in a 20-over match in which all twenty wickets fell.

Jaideep took the first ball and, through paying no attention either to what the umpire told him or where his partner was, convinced himself that the bowling was to be left arm over. It was, in fact, left arm round, and the unexpected angle left Jaideep’s feet in the wrong place and he got bowled. In fact the bowling was very good: quickish, hard-spun orthodox slow left arm from that end, accurate seam from the other. Another loaned player, Woody, treated the left armer by advancing down the pitch, but he didn’t quite get to the pitch of the ball and the resulting edge ballooned to slip. He started to walk off, paused and looked at the umpire (Gregory), who nodded; and Woody walked away firmly, knowing now that it had travelled on the full. At the other end, Ian missed a pull and was given out instantly by Rob. You are supposed to think before raising the finger, but in this case there really was nothing whatever to think about.

CB and Farooq steadied things. Rather too much, perhaps. We were scoring at just under two an over, although at this stage that still only meant we needed a run a ball to win. Unfortunately we continued to score at two an over off Harjeet (brisk medium) and Ajay (slow medium, a pace probably chosen to suit the conditions). Farooq did hit one four, as well as two return catches to Harjeet off successive balls, but eventually he and CG both miscued, always a danger on such a slow pitch. By the time Simon came in the match was far out of reach and he simply blocked: Rob was a little more positive but fell to a good catch in the last over. A Star loanee scrambled a couple of twos at the end, getting us past the halfway mark.