Saturday 3rd May 2008
Saturday 10th May 2008

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Saturday 3rd May 2008

1st XI vs. North London

Report by: Mark Varley

After a steady start to our summer with victory against Calthorpe, this week boasted a much tougher challenge. The opponents were North London of the County league's division two. With a week of heavy rain it was a relief that our bank holiday was due to be sunny. However it was obvious after a brief inspection, that the track had been affected by the bad weather and didn't look too friendly for batting, and so came the toss which was promptly lost and we were put in to bat! In fairness apart from the track being a bit soft it was still flat and should've been manageable for our batsmen.

Chrissie Arul was entrusted with topping the line-up with Dodgy after a comfortable opening stand the week previous, but soon fell to a soft dismissal after looping an easy catch to point from a delivery which stopped in the wicket! This brought in Wali at three, a bit earlier than would be preferred, and the young attacking batsmen also found it hard to find the pace of the pitch and soon nicked a wide on behind, there was a discussion between umpires as to whether the ball had carried and it had. In came Dave Rai and after a slow 5-10 over spell, where runs were tough to come by, played around a straight one and was given LBW! With the run rate trickling along at around 1.5 Dan Hare came in and looked to attack the short boundary to get the innings going. North London's openers didn't offer many bad balls and it was going to be a patient batsmen that lasted any amount of time. Dodgy had run out of patience too soon and lost his wicket. Then the quick's were replaced at the bottom end by some very slow and tempting off spin, seemingly so we could mount a competitive total, which Dan started to take advantage of. In came Barney to steady the rapidly sinking ship at around

60-4 from 25ish over's. He and Dan began rebuilding with some efficient running and dispatching over the very short boundary. Dans cameo came to an end after missing a sweep off a straight delivery from the spinner. The total was hovering around 100 runs and two more quick wickets of Ash and Chat fell. In came Wills and after a few lusty blows and Barneys 50 the openers were brought in to clean up the tail. Not much was left of our innings once Wills was out barring a stubborn stand from Varley and a not so stubborn golden from Doddsey! So we had a total of 146 to defend after a gritty 70no from Barnard helped us to save face!

Opening from the top end was Wali and with a couple of niggles he was complaining about wasn't up to his usual ferocity and dished out a few early sighters for the North London openers which were duly dispatched to all parts! Wills was plugging away from the bottom end and after a couple of close LBW shouts got his first victim with a perfect in-ducker which had off stump uprooted. North London made steady progress and never looked like letting victory slip even after a stern effort from the four bowlers after Varley and Doddsey replaced Wills and Wali.

The telling difference was the North London opener who made light work of the run chase with a quick fire 92no which knocked the stuffing out of the team. It was far from any sort of form we want to be bringing into the forthcoming season as we had a poor day with the bat and didn't help with some shoddy fielding and too many loose deliveries. On a day had we played half as good as we know we can we might have given the oppo a good run for their money, but this weekends performance was well below a par showing and I hope we have blown away the cobwebs before our opening match against Southall next week!

Team: Arul, D Hinnigan, Khan, Rai, D Hare, Barnard, Ash Perera, Gallage, Willett, Dodds, Varley

Saturday 10th May 2008

1st XI vs. Southall

Report by: Martin Loveday

Team: Arul, D Hinnigan, Khan, Barnard, D Hare, Hazell, Beeden, Dodds, Loveday, Varley, Lawrence