Venturers Vs The Star, Wednesday June 7th

Venturers 97-8, The Star 98-4

We weren’t much good. Kamal was caught and bowled straight away but Rob Branston gave the innings a brief boost before being run out, and while Krish and Joji were batting it looked all right. But Krish got rather becalmed (his last ten scoring shots were singles). From 52-2 after ten overs we somehow managed only another 45, for the loss of six more wickets. Farooq and Akash were both capable of accelerating but neither lasted at all: Steve A found gaps for a short while but that didn’t last either.

Our attempt to defend 97 got off to a good start when Subrata removed one opener immediately, but the other proceeded calmly until terminated by the Star’s self-imposed retirement rule, which is that you have to retire if Harjeet says so. The opener was, in fact, Harjeet, but he applied the rule to himself at least as rigorously as to everybody else. His partner was probably about to have the rule applied to him too, but before that could happen he tried to launch Gregory’s third ball and was caught by Akash after a juggle. A more successful attempt was made a few overs later and the batsman who did that was also in Harjeet’s sights when Akash bowled him. Meanwhile Zoe Brown nudged the ball around and made herself difficult to get out, as she does. We are used to this now, but that doesn’t mean that we can do anything about it. Joji was ineffective for once. Farooq did bowl Zoe eventually, as she sought the winning runs, but they had almost four overs left when they won, and about six wickets depending on Harjeet’s patience.