Allsorts Vs Venturers, Sunday September 12th

Allsorts 250-4 declared, Venturers 251-4

In which Toby reaches a personal milestone; few people get out at all; and we are the beneficiaries of a generous declaration.

A powerful theme from the start of the season returned, like the fourteen trumpets that begin and end the Janacek Sinfonietta. Like the first match of the season, the last began with several players lost on the way to the ground, and there being only ten of us. This time the absentee was Hugh, who had injured his knee: a replacement had been sourced for us by our opponents, but he never showed up. Robbie arrived shortly before the start of play but Bruce was rather later. This was very inconvenient, as Bruce had the kit, including wicket-keeping equipment, and we had lost the toss. Gregory had been elected captain by a mysterious process in which Maurice, the Allsorts captain, appeared to have a vote and Gregory himself did not. There were few alternatives anyway, especially with Bruce not present.

Ritvij kept, wearing whatever equipment was around, and Toby opened the bowling with CB. You know you are in for a hard day in the field when CB gets hit around. The pitch at Congresbury is hard and even, though not very fast: the outfield is flat and quick. Even moderately good batsmen will make bowlers pay for mistakes. The Allsorts openers set off at eight an over, helped by a misfield and by four overthrows early on. One of them, Arbus, had made a hundred on this ground a fortnight previously: there seemed no good reason why he should not do it again, especially after Toby induced an edge and Ritvij dropped it. The other opener was quieter, but seemed to offer fewer opportunities for the bowlers. After bowling five overs, Toby took over the wicket-keeping duties (Bruce, and the kit, had arrived by then) and Imran took over the bowling from Toby’s end. Arbus looped a catch to square leg off Imran and Ritvij dropped that too. This was more surprising. Ritvij is only an occasional keeper but he has a safe pair of hands in the field.

From the other end, Gregory tried bowling himself. He claims to be unable to bowl properly if he is captain, as he can’t think and bowl at the same time. This indeed proved to be the case, but it should be remembered that he is often unable to bowl properly even when he not captain. Fortunately, that doesn’t stop people getting out to him, and when he did get one ball about right, Arbus skewed it into the sky on the leg side. This time Ritvij caught it, despite a near-collision with Imran.

That did slow the scoring a bit, especially after Gregory took himself off in favour of Robbie, but we didn’t look like getting another wicket except when Steve Dent was bowling. Imran was not easy to hit, but he doesn’t look easy to hit; Steve does, so batsmen try and that can be dangerous for them. But he bowled too many genuinely bad balls and couldn’t maintain pressure. Robbie had a long spell and helped lower the run rate, but it was only when Imran returned and Bruce, who had had a lot to do in the field, did his death-bowling thing that batting became even slightly difficult. Even then, it was a run-out that broke the stand, with the score well past 200. Ali, batting at three, has a reputation for running his partners out, but this wasn’t really his fault and it needed a direct hit from Jaideep to get rid of the opener for 89. Not very long after that, Ali himself gave Bruce a return catch, and when the new batsman was immediately bowled by CB, Maurice declared so as to give himself 45 overs to try to bowl us out.

When first Jaideep and then Ritvij edged cuts to the keeper Maurice’s plan looked like a good one. Toby and Farooq played carefully for a long time. 33 for 2 after 15 overs does not make you think you will chase 250 in 45. Slowly the rate picked up, and then Ali, who had bowled four overs for nine, and taken Ritvij’s wicket, suddenly conceded fifteen in his fifth over and did not bowl again. By the end of the 25th over the score was 90: more importantly, 90 for 2. We needed eight an over, but it was no longer highly likely that we would get bowled out. It was still very possible, though, and we had just had an escape. Toby mistimed a shot that could politely be described as a pull, and midwicket caught it: but Bruce was signalling no-ball. This caused something of a discussion. Bruce doesn’t really believe in signalling and it had only occurred to him at a relatively late stage that it was something he ought to do: moreover, his explanation of why it was a no-ball was wrong, even though his conclusion was correct. (Scholiast: it is a no-ball if in the delivery stride any part of the bowler’s back foot makes contact with the return crease, which is the one at the side, parallel to the pitch. Thus you are not allowed to bowl from mid-off. It does not matter if the bowler’s front foot cuts that crease, but Bruce’s explanation was that that had happened. However, the bowler was bowling over the wicket, and his back foot was even further away.) Toby had been getting a bit jittery about not scoring faster, although Farooq had told him he needn’t worry, and this escape calmed him. It didn’t calm him completely, though, and a few overs later he ran Farooq out, with a large contribution from the fielder.

The was potentially disastrous, because Farooq had been doing a lot of damage. We still had a reasonable amount of batting to come, though; and Toby was by now playing very fluently. At that point we needed just over a hundred in fourteen overs, and the only way we were not going to get them was by losing wickets. On the other hand, we were going to lose wickets, because if Toby reached a century he would be morally obliged to retire, and then we might get bogged down. We need not have worried. Chandrabhan took over where Farooq left off, and in due course Toby did reach his hundred: like Ritvij in the first match, his first one, and made with great assurance. He retired at the end of the over after facing only one more ball. We still needed 41, from six overs: we would get them unless CB got out. Robbie reliably gave him the strike, and he did the rest: at the very end Robbie got out, leaving us needing five. CB, back on strike, pushed a single, and Imran’s first ball clipped his hip as he tried to glance, and ran away to the fine-leg boundary.

It is a long time since we chased so many. In fact 251 is our highest score in either innnings for seven years, and the last time we made more batting second was in 2007. We did also win that match, so no records were broken here; but this was an extremely good performance by the batsmen. The bowlers, with the exception of Imran, had less to be proud of.