Venturers Vs XPSCC Guildford, Sunday July 14th

Venturers 127-8 (30), XPSCC Guildford 130-6 (26.3)

Owing to a counterattraction of some sort, and the train that some of the Guildford people wanted to catch, we started at 12:30 and the match was 30 overs, not even the 35 that was first proposed. We batted, by agreement: first, we weren’t all there yet (in particular, Imran wasn’t, and it was Gregory who made the agreement), and second, it meant that if time ran out they could put the rail travellers up the order with instructions not to stay in and miss their train. Fortunately we did have enough batsmen among those present.

Shreyas and Jonathan opened. They played calmly, efficiently and very slowly. The opposition had the random appearance that touring sides often do have, especially after a night out. Two of them wore shorts, one blue and one black. They both fielded well. There was a bloke in a dayglo pink hat, and a woman in a cricket shirt, cycling lycra and sunglasses, who ran very fast, and one of the fielders wore a purple sash. This last was an award held by the last player to goof in the field, and it changed hands rather seldom in the first twenty overs. They bowled fairly well and they stopped everything. The run rate didn’t get much above a run an over for some while. On the other hand, neither batsman looked like getting out. We were almost half way through the overs, and the score was about 40, before Jonathan tried to sweep a plain straight ball and missed it. This one was so obviously out that the bowler simply announced “Yes!” rather than appealing in the usual way.

Krish played a nice off-drive. They dropped mid-off back, gave Krish a slower ball and he lofted it straight down the ground to the fielder (still a good catch, though). Rubbaniy seemed uncomfortable and soon played back instead of forward and got bowled. Kamal was unlucky: he timed his square cut perfectly and was spectacularly caught at cover. Tom hit the next ball in the same direction: this time it didn’t quite carry to cover, but Shreyas was slow to send Tom back and the direct hit did for him. Mizan did a bit better but soon chipped a low return catch. Shreyas and Joji brought things back a bit but Shreyas eventually holed out at square leg. At this point, though, the sash came into its own: three catches went down, all from Imran, and Bruce and Gregory were not needed, though Joji got bowled swinging at the last ball.

They didn’t use their optimal batting order, either because of trains or to give people a chance. If the latter, it wasn’t much of a chance, because Imran was impossible to score off. Tom was only a little looser. Imran cleaned up one opener and the black shorts man. The woman in lycra appeared with black pads on, a worryingly professional-looking development; but although she got in line and dealt suitably with a bad ball from Bruce and one from Gregory, she didn’t have the machinery to deal with a good-length off-break. The next batsman hit a perfect straight drive off Gregory and then a crude swipe off Imran, which Kamal caught rather nervously. Blue shorts man top-edged a sweep, which bumped his helmet on the way to Shreyas’s gloves. We tried to remember whether that invalidated the catch and concluded that it didn’t (correct) although it used to (incorrect) and contact with a fielder’s helmet would have done (also incorrect). But we now had better batsmen to deal with, or ones who were less hungover or didn’t have a train to catch, and the wickets stopped coming. They had a way to go, because of Imran and because we had fielded quite well even without the incentive of the sash. But although they didn’t bowl badly, Joji, Jonathan and Mizan all seemed unthreatening, and it was Krish who eventually broke through again. By that time, though, they were comfortable on run rate so we had to bowl them out. We couldn’t, and the new batsman finished the job with some selective slogging.