Saturday 31st August 2002
Saturday 24th August 2002
Saturday 17th August 2002
Saturday 3rd August 2002

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Saturday 31st August 2002

1st XI vs. Phoenicians

Report by: Alan Barnard

With our chances of promotion fading fast, we made our second trip round to west London in successive weeks to take on bottom of the table Phoenicians in a game that we absolutely had to win to stand any chance of going up. The thing is about Phoenicians is that you never quite know who they're going to have playing for them, but over the last few years, the standard of their 1st XI has really slipped, and we were expecting to win easily.

On willing the toss, Wills took the decision to field first, a must, given our record of wins batting second in the latter half of the season. Having said this, it we were forced to field with 10 men for the best part of 20 overs, after debutant Anil Sharma got a little confused, and headed to Wood Green instead of Greenford - d'oh! Phoenicians openers started well, despite neither of them being particularly good. A sharp catch went down in the slips, and the batsmen began to accelerate, thanks to a succession of comedy cows, and edges through the slip area.

A double bowling change by Willett brought about immediate results, with Barney picking up 1, and Rochie picking up 3, but for the first time in as long as I can remember, the Phoenicians batsmen started to post a total. Barnard was very unlucky not to take a hatful of wickets, with 2 dropped catches (Cheers Beeden), 3 overs of non-stop play and miss, and an LBW, which the umpire Kindly informed me would have been out had I appealed.

With Barratt eligible to bowl after being relieved of his wicketkeeping duties by Beeden and looking good from one end, we brought on Anil, who bowled excellently after a slightly shaky beginning. Highlight of the day has to be Dodgy Dave taking a blinding catch in the deep, suprising everyone hugely. Phoenicans managed to post 233 in 55 overs, which has to be their highest total for quite some time, and wouldn't be that easy to chase on a difficult, but not too bad track.

Ses and Tim opened up, and Ses fell quickly mistiming a pull stroke. This brought Anil to the wicket, and he and Tim batted excellently to put on over 100 at around 6 an over to give us the platform we needed to press on and win the game. Anil was looking class, and Dodgy decided to put the mockers on him by saying 'that Anil is a great bat' just as the bowler released the ball, and sure enough Anil was stumped. D'oh. Dodgy came and went, and the loss of Tim for an excellent 75 left us with a battle on our hands.

Short-arse Aussie Barrat Ganji and Adam 'Herring' Herron came together, and set about playing some class shots and run some cheeky singles to bring the game well within our reach. Barrat let the pressure of playing out 5 dot balls get to him by charging down the wicket and getting bowled in comedy fashion. Barnard came to the crease, and without playing any big shots, pushed the score along at a healthy rate with some excellent running with Herron.

When Barnard was out LBW playing a poor sweep stroke, Willett came to the wicket, and smashed his first two balls for 10, showing Barney exactly how the sweep stroke should be executed. 1 over later, we had won, with overs to spare - an excellent team batting display, and a much needed win after last weeks showing. After heading back to the club, we took the decision to go to O'Raffertys, and a top night was had by all (see Monsters report for the gory details). Team: Willett, Beeden, Jayasena, Sharma, Hinnigan, Ganji, Herron, Barnard, Roche, Worton, Street

2nd XI vs. Pinner

Report by: Martin Loveday

This is last match report i shall be writing (for this season anyway). It was our final game of the season and having already been crowned champions the spirits were high and the game was to be taken with a relaxed attidtude? No think again. Kev wanted the same high standards as the boys had produced all year so that we would finish the season on a high and look at new players that have joined the club. Pinner were the visitors and after what can only be described as a disasterous second half to the season where by all accounts they have had some bad luck with the toss and some internal termoil has caused the side to plumet down the table into 4th. Kev won the toss and elected to bat. Dom and Kev opened the batting and it was at this point i was at the chip shop, but Dom did explain how he miss timed a swinging full toss and was caught. The bowling was fairly tight as the ball seemed to be swinging all over the place. Kev had also been dismissed fairly cheaply and Khazi and Billy were at the crease. They were knocking the ball around for 1's and 2's with the occasional boundary being added. They bought on their spinner who seemed to be very good, mixing it up between flighting the ball, lots of turn and some flatter, pacier deliveries. Runs were steady but slow and when Pat and Billy had been dismissedafter putting on a partnership of 64. Llyod was in at 5 at set his mind to bat out the last 18 overs as wickets began to tumble around him Goddard, Reid and Trevor going very cheaply before Stav put up a little resistance. He went shortly after and so did Dodds after missing a full toss. Loveday was in a 11 with 5 overs remaining of the 50 and 15 being neede to get the full bonus batting points at the 175 stage. Both batsmen looked to push the runs and no real shots were played until 4 runs were needed of 7 balls and Loveday smashed a big six to get to that point. Lloyd then took over and completed his well earned half century before being bowled going for the slog and we finished our inings on 197 of 51 overs.

We had tea and prepared to take the field.

Dodds took the new ball from the top end and got into a good rythmn with Trevor who opened at the bottom. Ciaran was bowling a fuller length aiming at the stumps whilst Trevor was happier bowling short of a length and troubling the batsmens fingers, gloves and chest. Ciaran was the one getting the success as his straight line meant that he took 3 wickets all bowled by the time he finished his 7 over spell. The batsmen were still struggling with Trevors pace and bounce and an edge behind got him a well deserved wicket. Trevor was unlucky not to have more but did pick up a second as the ball went into the air at backward point and Billy was there to take the catch. I think that Stav got a wicket caught behind by Winstonto leave them 6 down for about 75. Loveday replaced Trevor at the bottom end and polished off the tail. Taking a wicket in his first over then another in his second, things looked gloomy for Pinner. A maiden third and with good support from Stav at the top end Loveday proceeded to take the last two wickets in his 4th over. Pinner were dismissed for 97 with many overs to spare.

All in all a good day for us but we were hoping for a stronger more competitive side from Pinner. As before we took heart in playing a fair game of cricket in the right spirit and i think i speak for the whole side when i wish Pinner all the best for next season and hope they can sort out their interclub problems quickly because it really has been a pleasure to play them this season. In the bar after the game we started on the drinking, but unfortunately the atmosphere was very sombre and most of the side had to go or be else where. A few jugs of lager later and it was onto the spirits whilst we waited for the first eleven to return. It was decided that we would go to rafferties and a group consisting of: Loveday, Smith, Beeden, Cooper, Herron, Barnard, Billy, Waker, Varley, Goddard, Dodds.

£6 pounds to get in seemed steep and after Barney bought the first round he ran out of money. Northern seemed to be on a mission to get wasted as was very quickly. The highlight of the night for me had to be when Billy pinched some munters arse and got a slap in the face for his troubles. It was good to see Beeden and Cooper getting into the swing of things as they hit the dance floor but not before Beeden had a whinge about being too old. Asking everyone how old they were and how old they thought he was........ At this stage young Barnard suppased his own very low standards and proceeded in pulling a pig. He also claimed that this was the woman he was going to marry even after she told him she was 36 !!!!! This however was after she tried to pull Chris Goddard who wasnt actually allowed out with us BECAUSE HES ONLY 16 !!!!!!!!!! Lots of alcohol was consumed with dancing and laughing, and a very good night was had by all. Once the night had finished we waited outside for Barnard but he could not leave the side of his pig so we waited around taking the mickey out of him. Eventually everyone got on their buses and Billy and myself went for some chicken before we got in a cab and went home. The night was however marred slightly the next day at the news that Varley had a bit too much to drink and managed to smash his hand on the way home followed by a session of throwing up in Ciarans bed.... NICE......

Saturday 24th August 2002

1st XI vs. Birkbeck College

Report by: Alan Barnard

Well, the fixture was Brikbeck College away, and the result was pretty bad, considering a recent form, and the need for us to keep up the pressure on West Harrow and Mill Hill Village for the final promotion place in Division Two. Willett lost the toss, and was unsurprisingly put into bat on a track that was stopping and jumping with alarming regularity. We lost the early wickets of Venki and Ses, which really put us in trouble given that we were missing a couple of regular 1st XI batsmen.

Tim Beeden, coming in at number 3 played a sterling knock, with a patient 47, whist Alan Barnard, batting number 4 for the 1st XI for the first time for a couple of season looks in patchy form, but grafted well to make 61. The partnership was worth over 100, and although slow, was exactly what was needed on a tricky batting track. Willett going for 18 after looking in confident form sparked a mini collapse, but some excellent late hitting from Matty Worton and Martin Loveday ensured that we passed the 200 mark - a good score on a very average wicket.

We started brightly, bowling wise, with Ses taking an absolute belter of a catch at short leg off the bowling of Matty, and wills picking up the wiket of the other opener, but their number 3 and 4 looked in excellent touch and scored freely. Loveday bowled with little luck, and Ricko and Venki were brought on, and dismissed both the dangermen fairly quickly, but we took our foot of the pedal at this stage, and the game began to slip away from us. In a nutshell, we bowled too many bad balls, and basically asked the batsmen to help themselves to runs.

Despite a couple of late wickets, we couldn't do enough to bowl then out, and they passed our total with 8 wickets down and around 2 overs to spare. All in all a very disappointing day, capped off by Willett producing some of the smelliest farts ever in my car on the way back to the club - cheers fella! We do have a very slim chance to gain promotion with 2nd place, but it's looking increasingly unlikely as we've got to win next week against Phoenicans, and then overcome top of the table Osterley in the last week of the season at home. An uphill struggle, but I think we can do it if we play to our full potential.

Pick of the bowlers from this Saturday has to be either Wils or Matty, highlight of the day has to be the bird serving the teas. Although we were gutted when we got back to Hydeside, we were lifted by the news that the 2nd XI had avoided defeat, and had won the league… that can only mean a monumental piss up next weekend, bring it on! Team: Willett, Ses Jayasena, Venkatesh, Beeden, Barnard, Ganji, Worton, M Bilson, Loveday, Lewis, Varley

Saturday 17th August 2002

1st XI vs. Alexandra Park

Report by: Martin Loveday

It was a hot and humid day and Alexdra Park were our visitors this week and having just arrived back that morning from their tour were at the ground very early.

Tony lost the toss and we were originally put into the field, but a change of mind had us batting first. Venki had not turned up due to a misunderstanding between him and Chris who went to pick him up. So in a shake up we had Lexton opening the batting with Ses. Some good running early on with Lexton running at a pace with had even Ses struggling to keep up. Also Ses was playing some untidy but effective strokes aswell as some lovely drives whilst Lexton seemed to be struggling with planting his foot down the wicket and trying to smash sixes to no avail, but his running between the wickts ensured that the run rate remained at a good rate. Ses was the first to go with the first bowling change as their left arm spinner who is highly regarded managed to beat him in the flight and gratefully accepted a c & b. Venki had arrived at the club and went in at 3. He looked his normal assured self as he started playing class strokes all over pitch of the front and back foot. The outfield was strangely slow and not a lot was making its way to the boundary. Lexton was next to go which brought S.Roche to the crease. Roche was looking comfortable before being given stumped, but it certainly wasnt a clear cut decission which left Simon feeling slightly hard done by. The run rate had started to slow down as the spinners seemed to take control of the game. The emergence of Barret at the wicket at no.5 saw this change. He started to destroy the spinner from the bottom end with some big sixes and more lovely strokes which flew to the boundary. Venki reached his 50 but was dismissed shortly after. In came Willett who had said he wanted to declare early so that we would have enough time to bowl the oppo out. So when he started off smashing everything very early on the score flowed onto 180 for 4 off 44 overs. More shots followed over the next couple of overs including Tony hitting a six into the grocers. When Tony got caught later in the over after a quick fire 30 the declaration came when we was at 213 for 5 off 46 overs.

We took the field all pumped up with a game plan of taking quick wickets and getting 30 points. Loveday and Street opened up and Streety was bowling his normal excellent line and length and took 2 wickets in his first 5 overs. Loveday was inexpensive but was over pitching a fraction. Loveday got a wicket in his 7th over and they were 3 down for 30. First change was Rico at the bottom end and N.Roche at the top. Rochey bowled with good pace and had the batsmen in trouble from the start and Rico was bowling exceptionally well. The field placings proved to be excellent as first ball after drinks a Rochey full toss was hit straight to Loveday at mid off and they were 4 down. Next over Rico bowling tight and Tony leaving a big gap for the cut shot, payed dividends as the off stump was hit whilst their batsman looked for that gap. 5 down now and the boys keep the pressure up and the fielding was faultless. Tony had a short spell replacing Roche from the top end. Again the pace caused them problems but managed to keep Tony at bay. This bought about another change and Venki came on from the top end with 10 overs remaining. Venki got the next wicket in his second over as a missed timed drive went straight down Lovedays throat and they were 6 down for 110. In Venkis next over a carbon copy of the last dismissal as another drive straight at Loveday left them 7 down with 5 overs left. Rico in the next over pitched the ball up and tony took a smart catch at short extra cover. With the very next ball Rico trapped their trappy keeper LBW and now they were 9 down with 4 overs to go. Venki bowled 2 more overs and Rico bowled 1 in the search for the last wicket but it did not come. Tony decided to make a change and N.Roche was bought on from the bottom end for the last over. Neil was racing in and bowling very well and it only took till his third ball, when the last batsman was given out LBW leaving them on 140 and the E's claimed the full 30 points.

It has to be pointed out that everybody done very well and contributed to the win. But i think a special mention has to go to the skipper who not only made a great contribution with the bat to accelerate the run rate and post 213. It was an inspired declaration cos as we all know 213 is easily gettable on our wicket. Some excellent field placings enabled us to take the wickets we needed and claim the victory.

Many beers were had after the game, where everyone got bit to pieces by the midges. Another good win fellas and with 3 games to go we are by no means out of the hunt for second place despite a fairly wide gap between us and West Harrow. We need to concentrate on our own game and win our remaining fixtures hoping that Harrow slip up on the way but hey well have a f*cking good crack at it...... Teams: T.WILLETT, VENKI, S.JAYASENA, A.BILLIMORIA, B.GANJI, S.ROCHE, N.ROCHE, M.LOVEDAY, R.LEWIS, J.STREET, L.HARRISON.

2nd XI vs. MTSSC

Report by: Tim Beeden

The match was away to Middlesex Tamils at the Post Office Ground Sudbury, we arrived at 12.15 to be greeted by what looked like a nice place to play cricket, with a brand new boundary rope and two sightscreens at one end it really looked like the Tamils had made an effort to improve their ground, that was until we looked at the wicket and thought it could be quite interesting.

Kevin won the toss and decided to bowl first, we had won our last four matches by bowling sides out cheaply and knocking the runs off with no more than four wickets down and hoped to do the same today, their skipper asked Kevin to take it easy on them and then informed him that they had three or four first team players playing.

We opened the bowling with Anil and Ciaran, the second ball of Ciarans over was a good length ball which hit the batsmen on the shoulder, the wicket was already playing up and we had only had two balls. Ciaran and Anil both picked up early wickets including a brilliant catch from Northern, their number four came in, he was 4 foot 6 and looked about twelve but he turned out to be one of their best batsmen playing the quicker bowlers quite easily, Kevin decided to bring himself on and bowled three consecutive maidens to the Sri Lankan Eddie Lucas before bowling him round his legs. Anil picked up another couple of wickets which left them about 50-5 their number six batted well and definitely knew how to bat on this wicket, by the time he had reached his 50 Kirk had picked up three wickets, Kirk then hurt his ankle and was replaced by Pat who took a wicket with his first ball and with them only having 10 players we had bowled them out for 134, a score that was 40 or 50 runs to short.

We went into the port-a-cabin for tea but with the temperature outside being about 90 degrees it was more like a sauna, I decided to give it a miss (the first time ever) and went into the air conditioned bar to have a look at the football scores.

We came out for our innings feeling very confident about another 30 points, Mini Smith opened with Dominic who had missed the last 3 matches, after being dropped in the first over Mini looked very confident putting on 30 with Dom before getting caught behind, this brought Anil to the wicket and as usual he started scoring freely, he had scored about 25 when he was brilliantly court at mid wicket, Pat was next in and after a cautious start and some intimidating appealing to Little Dodds by one or two of their players, Pat smashed the ball all over the ground bringing up his 50 and the winning runs with another pull through mid wicket, Dom had played another solid innings for 42n.o.

After the match we decided to find out the other scores, Pinner had lost to bottom side Turnham Green which meant we would need 15 points from our remaining two games to guarantee promotion. Our next match is home to Lohana and with victory we will be Champions.

Saturday 3rd August 2002

1st XI vs. Sudbury Court

Report by: Alan Barnard

The fixture was Sudbury Court, the date was 3/8/2002, and this is going to be a very short report, as I don't have a lot of time, and the match itself was over quicker than your average 20 over game. Sudbury Court were a shadow of the side that caused us so many problems earlier in the season, and with only 3 or 4 good batsmen, they were always going to struggle. It was the traffic that was the first winner of the day, claiming 10 points of Sudbury Court as they could not be ready to start by 2pm - 30 minutes later than the scheduled start time.

Enforcing the toss, Wills decided wisely to field, and with Road Rage and Rocher away for the day, it was up to Monster to open the bowling - in fact, this was the first time he has bowled for the Saturday 1st XI, and on this display will relish doing so again in the near future. Lovers was bowling well, and was unlucky not to take 5. He seemed to be more effective with his weaker deliveries, a testament to the fact that his good deliveries were doing too much for the batsmen to get close.

From the other end, Streety was bowling as well as ever, also producing a series of unplayable deliveries, picking up 3, but Monster was determined to go one better, taking 4, and finishing off their top order. Court were highly disorganised, and had batsmen coming in t-shirts and black trainers as high as 5. Ses Jayasena was decidedly unimpressed by this saying that batsmen should not be allowed to play if they were not dressed correctly, but the bowlers were itching to see if there batting was as poor as their attire.

Wills brought himself on for Lovers, and took 3 quick wickets to wrap up the tail with Court finishing on 72 - a poor batting show on a good wicket, on which 200+ was probably more the order of the day. Tea was taken, and we came out to bat. To cut a long story short, Ses and Venki crashed the ball to all parts to ease past 72 - Jaya going on the penultimate ball of the innings, after turning down what would have been the winning run the ball before. Dodgy came in and did the business with his first ball, to wrap up 30 points, which could prove to be vital, especially if other teams were rain affected, and only took 10.

One of the best things about finishing so early was that we were in the bar early. With news filtering through of an impending 2nd XI victory away to Turnham Green, the mood was further lifted. Myself and Venki popped over tho see the seconds, wo were well on their way after a few jugs. I brought Smith a Stella and Mini Smith a coke, and headed back to Portsmouth having had a fresh air game, but more than happy with the full 30 points. Team: Willett, Jayasena, Venkatesh, Hinnigan, S Roche, Ganji, Barnard, Harrison, Street, Loveday, Lewis