Venturers Vs St John's, Sunday July 28th

Venturers 254-7 (35), St John's 190-10 (35)

Usually we win by bowling better. If we do win, that is. This time the batting did the job to such an extent that there wasn’t much for the bowlers to do. St John’s were a player short so we lent them a fielder, but one of the players they did have never showed up so they were a fielder down throughout. That did give them the advantage of finding out before they batted that Hirshith, who looks completely innocuous, has a rocket arm. They were short of bowlers, and their captain, Ash, started off with a series of wild looseners. One of those was a full toss that Hirshith somehow managed to steer to gully, but that brought Kamal in and he was quite severe on the rest. Shreyas was more restrained, and Krish, playing against us and bowling at the other end, was accurate. When he did produce a bad ball, Shreyas scooped it to square leg. It was a no-ball, though, and the fielder dropped it anyway. By then Ash had got his rhythm back and things slowed a bit. In Krish’s final over, Kamal chipped a ball back to him but stood his ground. Gregory was umpiring, as usual when Krish is involved, and also suspected a bump ball: consultation with Joji at square leg confirmed it, much to Krish’s disgust. It made little difference. His very last ball pinged Kamal on the pad and Gregory, after long thought about whether he was succumbing to pressure, decided that it really was hitting leg stump, and gave it out. Krish bowls from quite wide in the crease, but Kamal had stepped back.

Shreyas opened up a bit after that but then got bowled by possibly the best ball of the season. He was so startled that he not only forgot to swear in Kannada as per team instructions, he forgot to swear at all, and Charlie took guard in a crease littered with unspoken obscenities in assorted languages. Thereafter, the bowling deteriorated, and Charlie, Joji, Siddhant and Farooq, in order of increasing violence, cashed in. One of Farooq’s early efforts would very likely have been caught had it not been for a full-on collision between the fielders. One of them was Charlie, who was out by then and doing substitute duty. Fortunately neither was much hurt, but it was a while before they recovered from the immediate effects. Recovering from the effects of the heat also took time. Being Indian didn’t seem to make any difference: both Siddhant and Joji struggled. Farooq retired hot on reaching fifty, which allowed us to collapse a bit, but Bruce stuck around with Joji until the last ball, when he was run out going for a might-as-well-try run, again.

Krish opened the batting and was immediately sledged cheerfully by everybody. He played five balls from Imran carefully, and looped the sixth back over the bowler’s head for Joji to catch. A bat skidded across the outfield. Ash came next: he is a good batsman and his partner took a liking to Dinesh’s bowling, which would have been worrying if we hadn’t had so many runs on the board. Imran replaced Dinesh with Gregory to counter this, but before the theory could be tested the batsman it was aimed at ran himself out, apparently thinking that Charlie hadn’t got the ball. It was a long time before we made any more progress, though. The new batsman played well, cutting anything short and driving straight. Ash did the same at one end, but against Gregory he played purely defensively unless he was able to sweep. Charlie was parked out at deep square leg and prevented most runs: Hirshith and Dinesh prevented most of the rest. Drinks brought something of a change: we took a long pause as it was still very hot, during which there was a pitch invasion by about a hundred seagulls, scavenging obscenities perhaps. The break was long enough for Gregory’s shoulder to need another loosener, so we started to leak runs again, but by now the run rate needed was enormous. Ash charged Joji and got bowled. Bruce had a bowl; but he has got stuck in a pattern of poor form, therefore few opportunities, therefore lack of practice and therefore poor form again when he does bowl. Somebody charged Hirshith and Shreyas stumped him: Kamal caught a good catch at deep cover. At number 10, Krish reappeared. It was a while before he faced a ball. Then he hit Bruce high to long-on, but Farooq lost sight of the ball; otherwise Krish might have got a pair in a one-innings match. (Shoaib Malik once did that: a duck in the match itself, and another in the Superover.) Instead he called for a desperate single to keep strike for the final over and ran his partner out. One other batsman had made a duck and was also allowed to return, but after making a single he got back on strike and Bruce bowled him and stranded Krish.