2017 fixtures
Captain: David Proctor
Vice Captains: [appointed as required]
T20 Captain: James Schneider
A curious season in that we won 7 of our 12 games, within which there were some memorable finishes, but 12 games in total were cancelled. We struggled to raise teams in the latter half of the season, and in particular suffered the loss of uber-loyalists Joe Rahman (Hong Kong) and Vinay (knee injury). For the rest of us, a combination of busy London lifestyles eroded our availability (music festivals, overseas trips, political movements, weddings etc.).
Memorable games include the phenomenal climax against Gaieties that ended in a last-ball tie, an absurd, massively-against-the-odds, low-scoring, 1-wicket victory against Village CC and a tense and even lower-scoring 3-wicket victory over Bloomsbury Royals.
Mitch Nicholson again dominated with heavy run-scoring throughout, featuring some of the most fluent batting we have seen from him - in particular his innings against Gaieties and Gardeners linger in the memory. Otherwise, runs were hard to come by for the rest of us, compounded by the majority of our games being at home (stodgy surface). However, we did enough in some tight finishes to win some very satisfying games. David Proctor dug deep and produced an outstanding match-winning 42* against Village in a bad-tempered clash, crucially supported by uber-calm Riaz in a nail-biting last wicket climax. Key contributions in other games were made by Grant (a superb innings, against Gardeners), Faisal (audacious finish against Bloomsbury Royals) Harry Lojhan and James Schneider.
Our stand-out bowler in 2017 was the crafty Riaz Ashraf, who seems to improve with every season. The rest of us did enough to provide support, though obviously we badly missed our best bowler over the past decade, Joe Rahman. The Gower bros produced some useful spells, with David finding some genuine zip and zest in his return to medium-pace swing. The Devon tour sadly had to be cancelled at a late stage due to a bizarre catalogue of events that conspired to render most of us unable to commit. Otherwise, it was good to see the return of a rejuvenated Hem Patel, and his slidey fielding, and Mark Mellor - for one game.
View 2017 stats.
Read the AGM.
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