LBS mean Business
Highgate Wood, 5/22/2010
LBS won by 18 runs
LBS: 133 [Ashish 58]
Strongroom: 115
View the Scorecard
On possibly the best day of summer so far, Strongroom suffered their first defeat for 11 games. We were below our best in most disciplines and didn't deserve to win. Although we got within a few big hit of winning, that was down to a last ditch surge from Ujjal and in truth we were soundly beaten.
Strongroom latecomers delayed the start until 2pm. LBS won the toss and batted. Strongroom were a bit untidy throughout, though with flashes of brilliance. This was encapsulated by allowing the dangerous Ashish to get going thanks to 2 drops and 2 half-misses in the field only for him to be cut off in his prime thanks to a superb diving caught and bowled effort by Mark off a fiercely struck drive. In the middle of the innings, Tom bowled a tight, tidy and probing spell against the best LBS batsmen. Mark also let no one down with the ball, and Jimmy's keeping was tidy, including standing up to Mark. Overall we gave away far too man extras (including 16 wides) and allowed LBS too many singles. Before the drinks break at 20 overs we were average, after the break (led by Mark's c&b) we were much improved and managed to exert pressure and convert it into wickets.
Tea. This was a superb Newkirk-Higginson spread. Tom supplying a range of juicy sandwiches and Martin topping it off with some home-made scones and (particularly delicious) carrot-cake muffin type things. Outrageous domestic science.
LBS bowled well with the second new ball of the match. Their openers exerted pressure from the start and this was largely maintained throughout with steady accuracy. Deepak was swinging it both ways and moving it off the pitch. The opening pair of D Gower and Jules did a reasonable job of almost getting through to 10 overs unscathed until Jules' patience ran out. The next 10 overs were a disaster, moving from 20-1 to 47-6. We didn't bat well and struggled to put together any partnerships that might have turned the pressure back on LBS. Steady loss of wickets was the main problem because the run-rate never got daunting until the last few overs. LBS were very vocal and we probably didn't do ourselves favours with a couple of self-inflicted umpiring decisions. The pitch wasn't too difficult by Highgate standards, but the outfield was long and hitting boundaries always tricky. We also didn't run the singles as well as LBS. LBS showed good strength in depth of their bowling as they made changes without exposing any notably weak links. Strongroom's stand-out batsman was Andy Taylor, who top scored with 28 - a well crafted innings that began slowly and blossomed into a series of well-timed shots before being undone c&b by one that popped a little.
We were looking well beaten by the time our 9th wicket went down at 95, with 39 still needed to win. However, Chris managed to stick around, and Ujjal switched from reckless heaving to more sensible shot selection and execution and the pair put on the equal second biggest partnership of the innings (20). A giant straight six from Ujjal helped to put a bit of doubt into the minds of LBS but Deepak returned for one final over and with the last ball he managed to pierce Chris' defence to leave us 18 runs short with 12 balls to spare.
Written By: D.Gower
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