Southstoke Vs Venturers, Sunday April 24th

Venturers 174-4 dec, Southstoke 115-9

We met at Bathampton to play Southstoke, whose intended opponents had cancelled. That meant we would play them twice in four days, but nobody minded.

Simon won the toss and batted. No, that can’t be right. He never does that. Simon lost the toss – no, we don’t think he did. Simon was talked by the opposing captain into agreeing to lose the toss, and we were put in. Something like that: anyway, we batted first. Jaideep and Bhargab opened, cautiously at first. Aided by a drop and a couple of near misses they gave us a good start. The biggest slice of luck went to Bhargab: he was the non-striker when the ball that bowled Jaideep was delivered. Angled in towards leg, it swung late and hit the top of middle, and it would have bowled most people.

Krish wasn’t on quite the same wavelength as Bhargab about singles, and there was some jumpy calling until they worked it out, but they built another good partnership. Bhargab was dropped at mid-on, and started complaining about the ball, which he felt was soft and not coming off the bat properly. Naturally the fielding side, who are usually the ones who want the ball changed, weren’t falling for that, and he was told that if he wanted a different ball he would have to lose this one. He looked wistfully at the canal, then decided it couldn’t be done and batted on.

This match was full of minor incidents. At this point there occurred a Finn’s Law no-ball (bowler breaks the stumps while delivering). Bruce, umpiring, signalled it in completely the wrong direction and we had to explain it to the scorers later. Soon afterwards Bruce gave Krish out leg before, stuck in the crease. He did put the finger up alarmingly quickly, but probably because it was so obvious.

Now we needed to accelerate, because the ground closes soon after half-past six so we had agreed twenty overs from half-past five, and it was already well after three. We wouldn’t have much time to bowl them out. Akshay did a good job and Bhargab became more ambitious, and between them they got us to 150. Then Akshay missed, but we couldn’t really declare because Bhargab was on about 90. An offstage incident had deprived us of Varun, who had somehow managed to injure himself while waiting to go in to bat, so Tilakraj came in, hit a four and ran himself out. Southstoke of course bowled defensively, and did it pretty well, but eventually Bhargab, aided by Harsh, got enough singles and Simon declared immediately.

After a rather longer tea interval than we perhaps really wanted, Southstoke set off in pursuit of 175 to win in what turned out to be 34 overs (two more than we had used, so about right). Five an over is very achievable if you don’t lose wickets too quickly. Krish was accurate: Harsh’s length was good though his line wavered occasionally. Krish trapped one of the openers leg before: he would have used a review if we had that sort of technology but it would probably have returned umpire’s call at the worst. After thirteen overs they needed another 127 from presumably 21 or 22 overs, still not out of range and only one down, but Krish took two wickets, both bowled, in the fourteenth. At the other end Akshar’s legbreaks were causing problems, but also included some gifts: nothing outrageous. Replacing him with Akshay’s pace led to similar results.

Krish had bowled eight overs by this time. There was no actual limit, but it was time to try something else. Gregory spun an offbreak through an ambitious drive. The number three was well set by now, though, and he had a solid left-hander for company. We weren’t likely to lose, but two overs costing nine each took them to needing eighty off thirteen, still barely a run a ball. The right-hander came down the pitch to Gregory and succeeded in his aim of making the ball into a full toss, but lost his shape and skied it. The familiar panic that a skier causes started to spread, but soon subsided when we remembered that we had a proper wicketkeeper, with plenty of time to get there. Bhargab doesn’t drop those, and he didn’t.

The potentially dangerous left-hander who came it did not have to make his third ball into a full toss. It already was one: an agreeable one at thigh height, outside off. He launched into a pull, got it almost but not quite right, and sent it whistling through square leg at about head height. Square leg, twenty yards away, was Tilakraj. Without any kind of drama or show he simply reached out his left hand and collected the ball, as if somebody had handed it to him. Silence fell. Nobody, least of all Tilakraj, could think of anything to say, or explain what had just happened. But that, effectively, ended the run chase. Now we had to bowl them out.

The obstacle was the left-hander. He was unshaken by Akshay; did not attempt to attack Bruce (it is dangerous to attack Bruce and it looks easy to do); blocked Gregory. When Gregory did get one through him it missed off stump by a long way, missed Bhargab by rather less and collided with the helmet, resulting in five penalty runs. The right-hander who had come in at eight lasted, scoreless, for six overs, but then stretched to make another full toss and toe-ended it to Krish. The new batter (MCC approved terminology) was hit on the back leg in front of middle and off first ball, giving Gregory five wickets, three of them with full tosses. The number ten survived the hat-trick ball by making sure he got outside the line of off stump: good batting.

With six overs to go we reverted to Krish, who bowled three maidens: in one of these he induced an edge from the left-hander. Bhargab doesn’t drop those, but he did. The right-hander played Bruce sensibly, so when they turned down a single so that he could stay at Bruce’s end, Simon introduced Akshay instead. Three rapid but poorly directed deliveries followed: then a straight yorker. Akshay had two balls at number eleven, but fired them both down leg, and the left-hander played out Krish’s last over for the draw.