Venturers Vs BaNES, Thursday May 09th

BaNES 136-6 (20), Venturers 90-5 (20)

Imran failed to start play early because neither we not they could all get there in time, and lost one of what seemed to be at least two tosses. Anyway, we fielded. Imran opened the bowling himself and did it well, but was not quite as unhittable as he can be. Parth at the other end was similar. That was enough to induce pressure and one of openers actively tried to hit Imran. That doesn’t usually work very well. Joji accepted the resulting catch at mid-off, which brought in the ubiquitous Ajay. Ajay plays against us half a dozen times a year for three or four different teams: he has also played for us in the past. He is very effective with bat and ball and we were fortunate that he hesitated over a second run. That wouldn’t usually matter, except that the fielder was Parth and he hits the stumps.

At this point and for a while afterwards we were doing quite well. We didn’t mess up in the field – Shreyas missed a technical catch, but it was off the bottom edge, standing up. The other opener was leg before to a full toss. Shreyas thought he had been fooled by the dip. The bowler and the batsman both thought that he plain missed it. But they were unable to get anything much from either Gregory or two overs from Ritvij, who also picked up a wicket. Joji, on the other hand, was expensive, which has happened a couple of times now and didn’t really happen at all last year. Ritvij didn’t want to continue, so Imran tried Mub, who got hit about, and Steve D, who did all right considering that his were the eighteenth and twentieth overs. He and Joji also got a wicket each, and Parth was left with an over unbowled but he hadn’t been economical earlier, either.

So we were left to chase 137, which always felt likely to be too much. A good innings from Ritvij or Mub would have got us close, but they both played across straight ones early on. Mub was leg before and walked off, looking as if he would have reviewed it if Steve D had given him not out. Ritvij was bowled anyway. Jaideep held up one end and hit three fours in the air through the leg side. He complained bitterly about the need to do that, and the risk to his back. Shreyas also played well, although he hasn’t adjusted to slow Somerset pitches yet, but we had two accumulators in and that wasn’t enough. The partership ended in a strange way: Shreyas defended a ball that then rolled slowly past the base of his leg stump, so slowly that it probably would not have dislodged a bail if it had hit. But Shreyas turned round to try to to knock it away out of danger, and tapped the off stump with his bat. Out hit wicket (not bowled), which happens about once a season in our matches: it was Jaideep last year.

After that there was nothing much to do. Steve A and Hirshith made a couple apiece. Parth did rather better, and we might have had more chance with him up the order, but we needed a quick 50 from somebody and Jaideep’s slowish 45* would have been ideal as support but wasn’t nearly enough on its own.