Posted by Scooper
on 10/8/2009, 12:14 pm
91.106.36.130
This was a good game of cricket despite it being played on a green strip cut on the far side of the table. This produced a 110 yard boundary on the west side of the ground and barely 50 yards opposite. Being generous, track conditions would best be described as variable.
Roehampton batted first with Ashton (2 for 20 off 8 overs) and Carson (0 for 24 off 8) opening the bowling for the Plough and managing to restrict the guests to just 46 runs in the first 16 overs, albeit for no wickets.
Ashton was replaced by Ratyna (0-21-3) with L.Patel (4-37-9) (yes he bowled one over too many) relieving Carson at the bottom end. Lal managed to trick one of their openers into playing-on, but it wasn't until Boyd (2-33-4) came on for A.Rat that the wickets started to fall in earnest. Roehampton's excellent opening bat and skipper (clearly tired and weakened by the heat and Ploughman's superb opening bowlers) succumbed to a Boydie 'hand-grenade' that saw him caught by Reid at mid-wicket.
Thereafter wickets came regularly with bowling contributions from Reid (1-10-3), Jackson (0-24-2) and young Nikhil Patel (0-9-1) who came close to earning himself a wicket in a spirited over which bodes well for the cricketing future of the 10 year old.
Reid and Jackson combined in a mesmerising display of stealth, strength, speed, agility and general good-lookingness to run out their 8th batter. This along with Reidy's catch, led some of us to speculate on his ancestry and whether or not it may be (in part) feline.
Roe were all out for 178, a creditable performance on a nasty batting strip.
The Ploughman's innings started well, opened by Khan (9) and Lockhart (17) both batsmen eventually undone by good Roehampton bowling and being caught behind. Ratyna (30) and Tearle (13) got bogged down for a while, resulting in the required run rate being extended but both batsmen pushed us forward in the latter stages of their innings before being caught in the deep, Tearle to a particularly commendable effort at long-on.
Lal Patel (49*) and Carson (2) replaced them respectively, Lal going on to make the match high score with a steady knock but Carson disappointingly holing out to cover point whilst trying to push the score along.
This brought in Ashton, who with some 50 runs to score in 5 overs, had little choice but to chuck the bat. This was the best bit of the game as Lal and Smash got us to within 20 runs of the required total with 2 overs to go before Smash was caught at deep mid-on to bring in Jackson (2*).
The lack of time combined with the reintroduction of Roehampton's better bowlers meant that a win was always going to be asking a lot, but Jacko and Lal got us to within 9 runs of the Roehampton total, PCC's innings ending on 169 for 6.
Good friendly banter between the sides and genuine excitement at the end, against an excellent bunch of guys, all of whom joined us in the bar afterwards for the inquest.
More games like this please.
Scooper.
