Saturday 9th September 2006

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1st XI vs. British Airways

Report by: Alan Barnard

It was make or break time this week, the last game of the league season away to British Airways, where we had to win to avoid finishing in the bottom two places. After a solid run in where the team had been playing as well as can be expected starting with a spectacular win against Old Lyonians a month ago, we'd gone from strength to strength, only to see ourselves slip up at the penultimate hurdle last week with a massively under-par performance against a solid looking Old Actonians side.

There would be a few players looking to make amends for a lacklustre performance last week, but it was clear that despite their league position, BA were going to be no pushovers, as champions-elect, Osterley had found out the week before when they found themselves on the receiving end of a 10-an-over barrage from the bottom side. What we were grateful for was that the day looked clear and fine, and the weather forecast was good - we needed to be sure that we got the best possible chance of playing a full game in order to get ourselves out of our predicament.

Skipper Herron tossed up, and called incorrectly, and it's fair to say that we would have chased on this occasion, despite playing well batting first in all but the last game of the run in. It wasn't time to dwell on this, however, as we knew we had a good chance of winning if we posted a competitive total quickly, then let BA chase, as they are typically a side that will go for their shots from the first ball to the last. The regular openers, Dave Smith and Gavin Mardell padded up, and played out the first couple of overs with little incident.

Smithy was the first to fall, getting caught in the slips to a ball which appeared to angle away from him. This brought Dave Hinnigan in, who had curtailed his regular Friday night drinking activities in a bid to make some runs, and he didn't disappoint, starting fluently, and accumulating runs at a good rate. At the other end, Mini-Smith was either thumping boundaries (the highlight of which was a stunning pull which surprised him as much as it surprised the rest of the E-Unit) or getting dropped and playing and missing.

Despite this, Dave and Gav pushed the score on well, and we were going on at about 5 an over when we reached 150, which was completely according to the game plan. Unfortunately, a couple of quick wickets saw both batsmen depart, bringing in Danny Hare and Wali Khan, the latter of whom had been promoted up the order to play positively, and maintain the innings' momentum that had started so well. Both batsmen gave it some tap, with Wali hitting one immense six straight back over the bowlers head, after the bowler had been appealing for everything, and was running down the wicket at every opportunity to stare out the batsmen.

This wouldn't have been so much of a problem if he had a decent shout for lbw, but he was going up as if it was hitting middle half way up for balls hitting batsmen in the stomach, and giving it large when hit for four. There really was something not quite right about this fella, and when Dan decided to turn 5 and over into 6 an over in the space of 2 overs, the bowler didn't take to kindly to it. After driving the bowler for 4, he got stared out, then after pulling him for 4 he got stared out, the 3rd ball was what can only be described as annihilated for 6 over mid wicket with what has to be one of the most brutal pull shots I've ever seen at this level. The bowler wisely returned to his run-up, but was clearly smarting, and when he beat Dan outside the off stump next ball as the Rabbit aimed a flashy drive through the covers, he game down and started to give it again. What followed was one of the funniest sequences I've seen in a long time, as the bowler gave it, Dan politely enquired as to exactly how far he'd hit the pull shot the ball previous, which the bowler didn't take too kindly to. This escalated to the point where Dan was pointing with both hands at the mid wicket boundary, and the bowler knew that there really was no come-back. All this was of course played out to a back drop of laughter and derision from the assembled ECC masses, many of whom had already been on the receiving end of the bowler's petulance.

Anyway, returning to the task in hand, wickets continued to fall, but the scoring rate didn't ease up, and we passed 200. Wali and Dan went, followed by the skipper for a breezy 30 and the recently promoted Doddsey for 10. The last 3 recognised batsmen, Jilesh, Barney, and Tim played out some overs to ensure that we had the right declaration, and when we were bowled out for 232 from 48 overs, we had pretty much what we wanted in terms of a quick scoring total, but not so large as to make BA shut up shop when batting.

Tea was great. End of discussion.

We took the field knowing that our season rested on getting 30 points from this game, and hoping that one of 3 or 4 sides would slip up enough to let us overtake them. Wali opened up, and right away you could see he was in the mood, getting the right line and length, and bowling with a couple of extra yards of pace when compared to last week. Wickets were tumbling at a rate of knots, and with Doddsey opening up from the other end, and getting movement and bounce that no BA bowler really managed, we knew we were well in the game.

5 wickets, 2 to Dodds and 3 to Wali, and we'd done most of the damage. The pick of these has to be the BA batsman who scored 120 the week previous, who was undone by a ball from the Afghan Express that would have accounted for many a better batsman, starting on middle, and hitting the top of off. It was pleasing to see Dodgy pouch a smart catch at gulley off Doddsey too to show that it wasn't just his batting that was in top form after a quiet night in.

The 6th wicket, and the one which meant the most was the bowler who had been giving it large. To be fair to the guy, he looked a class batsman, but when he tried to turn a ball to leg, he only succeeded in getting a leading edge, which Danny Hare clung onto with ease at cover to send the ECC fielders into a rather vocal display of celebrating. Wali was not to be outdone, and the 7th wicket came after a low full toss was top edged, seemingly into orbit by the wicketkeeper batsman, who again looked like he could play. What should have been a routiene catch for Herron behind the stumps (he did have the gloves after all) could have gone horribly wrong as Wali rushed the length of the pitch to try to take the catch, despite 4-eyes-4-byes' calls. Luckily, the keeper made no mistake, and it was 7 down.

A couple of bowling changes later, and Varley was running in with pace and bounce from the tennis courts end, and snared another wicket with a good slip catch from Beeden and 2nd. Yet another leading edge which Herron took after what seemed like and age meant that we were 1 wicket away from achieving our goal. This is where things started to go a little awry though, as Jilesh, running in from mid on failed to get near what seemed to be a routine catch off Varley, and for the next 6 overs there wasn't another chance offered. I think it's fair to say that we weren't panicking, but we had lost a bit of momentum, and were just expecting to win by this stage.

Wali replaced Danny H from the top end with 8 overs to go in a bid to get the last wicket, and we didn't have to wait too long before the celebrations could start for real. A half pull, half drive from the number 10 looped up to mid on again, and Jilesh, sprinting in clung on superbly millimetres from the ground to wrap up a 78 run win, and atone for his earlier mistake. Job done, and now it was time to start the waiting game on the rest of the league's results - not before we'd thrown Wali into the showers fully clothed to celebrate his 5-for.

When enough of the results had come through to determine that we couldn't finish 2nd bottom it was time to celebrate. Once back at the club, and after numerous jugs there was much singing and banter as we partied long into the night. Barney was perhaps the worst for wear partly because he felt the need to drink the lion's share of Doddsey's jug that he paid £15 towards, and partly because he's a complete lightweight. The evening wasn't complete without getting a few songs out, and the old classics were rolled out in honour of the team.

Whilst this was a very good day, we need to ensure that the next thing that we celebrate is promotion, not avoiding relegation on the last day of the season. We need to be more focussed, committed, have better plans, and execute them better. We need to be 100% on the ball in the nets, and we need to be 100% on the ball on Saturdays. We need to ensure that we're not irresponsible on the Friday night, and we need to be bang on our game. If we do all these things, then there's no reason why we shouldn't turn losses into draws and draws into wins. A few more points this season would mean that we came 4th, not 4th bottom, and an improvement on that and we'd be challenging to big boys. Now is not the time to say 'what if?' now is the time to go out, take individual as well as collective responsibility and make it happen!

Team: Adam '4-eyes-4-byes' Herron, Gavin 'Jeckyll & Hyde' Mardell, David 'Yoga' Smith, David 'Quiet Night In' Hinnigan, Daniel 'How Far Did That 6 Go?' Hare, Wali 'Tea Dance' Khan, Ciaran 'Comeback Kid' Dodds, Alan 'Bad Hair' Barnard, Jilesh 'Only Catch The Hard Ones' Pattni, Tim 'My Knee's Gone' Beeden, Mark 'Cricket Is Better Than Work' Varley.

A big 'thank you' to Chris from all of the team for scoring throughout the season, and helping with lifts, admin and buying drinks - it doesn't go unappreciated!

2nd XI vs.

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