Venturers Vs BaNES, Tuesday May 10th

BaNES 167-1, Venturers 115-6

The welcome return of the magic number 115, making its fourth appearance as a team total out of twelve innings, didn’t do us much good. Nothing did, really: not Yash’s superb cover drive, nor his and Varun’s excellent calling and running, nor Gregory’s elegant offbreak that brought our first but only wicket, nor Simon’s skilled wicketkeeping. We bowled too short early on, even Imran, and BaNES got off to a flyer. Things calmed down a bit once Gregory and Farooq were given a bowl, perhaps mainly because the more aggressive of the openers was removed around that point under an agreed retire-at-50 rule (his partner eventually left the same way, but after 19 overs). The new batter played a couple of good shots before being pleasingly bowled, and we made no further progress. We were a bit unlucky: several shots looped into space and there was a moment with both batsmen at the same end, but the ball still too far away for it to matter. We didn’t even drop anything really, though both Harsh and Alex got near to balls that they might sometimes have caught.

The way that Yash and Varun set off, though, made us think we might win. Yash’s perfectly timed drive through extra cover off his first ball was a clear statement, and their clear and positive calling and running was worth several runs even in a short partnership. It was short because Yash, having shown us what he could do, found a new way to get out. Already in the first over he had stepped across his stumps to allow a ball to pass down leg and looked expectantly at the umpire, only to be reminded that this isn’t the IPL and it’s not a wide just because it’s outside leg. Nevertheless, he did it again; but he did not get out of the way, and the ball would not have passed down leg. He ran a leg-bye (which might have been disallowed anyway) before noticing that he was out. Soon after, Varun was bowled in a more stylish way, and beyond that there was, for quite a long time, only occasional violence from Farooq to keep us moving. His partnership with the rather subdued Krish was ended by a run-out. Krish apologised, but it wasn’t really his fault: there was a direct hit and Farooq realised the danger too late. Before that, Gregory had retired embarrassed from umpiring after, like Yash, failing to get out of the way of the ball, struck in this case by Farooq. Rob, also umpiring, had pulled Krish up for a short run. Krish and Simon batted out the overs, Krish becoming more fluent by the gloomy end but not quite getting to be forcibly retired.