Joe raises his game...but Ujjal wins his
Highgate Wood, 5/14/2011
Strongroom Roy won by 4 wickets
Strongroom Rahman: 174 [Z.Gul 44]
Strongroom Roy: 175-6 [H.Lojhan 50]
View the Scorecard
Intra-Strongroom matches have often been memorable, and in recent years games have gone to the final over, even the final ball. This particular game wasn’t a close finish, but it was memorable for several individual contests between some key players, which provided the main highlights of the afternoon.
The two skippers for the day were Ujjal and Joe – an appropriate selection I felt, as theirs is a highly competitive friendship which featured all the ingredients for a feisty game. Joe won the toss on a cloudy and breezy day, and decided to bat first. Both teams featured several debutants, as is traditional in Intra-Strongroom games, and first-up Yazad looked quite perky with the bat until he strangely played on, as he rocked back to cut a short one from Sumer. Gabbay was also looking solid, until a silly call from this author cut his innings short. Myself and Simon Ray both got in, and out, and it was left to Zohair to play out a curiously effective innings [44], which really helped our innings get to a reasonable position. At 90-5 an innings was needed, and Joe [34] played a blistering cameo, which nearly took us to a match-winning total. With a steely determination in his eye, he set about Mellor in particular with a series of whip-crack drives and pulls, the kind that only some left-handers can pull off – to what were all seemingly decent length deliveries. However, just as he threatened to launch our innings over 200, he was cut down by a snorter by Karan which pitched on leg and hit the top of off. Strongroom Roy had bowled well throughout, with the veteran Orme working up a head of pace in his initial spell, Ujjal, as usual, bowled a quality spell, and Rahul was hard to get away off his curious one-step run-up. Chris West had a bit of a bowling colly-wobble, at odds with his recent accurate performances, and his mate, debutant keeper Chris Vollebregt, also did his best behind the timbers, but it had been several years since his last game and 55 extras were given away. Finally...Ujjal did a fine job in marshalling his field and maintaining his cool amongst some noisy and exuberant team mates.
Tea was a Proctor-couriered Muswell Hill Bakery affair – and a damn good one at that.
Strongtroom Roy set off impressively in their pursuit of 175, with Rushib [20] and Harry [50] both looking in smooth form. Rushib was particularly swift at easing balls down to fine leg, whereas Harry again looked in sublime touch as he sweetly played through the ‘V’ repeatedly. Debutant Liam and familiar face Hem both received some punishment from the openers, and control was only reclaimed when Gabbay and Joe were in the attack. After Rushib was given lbw to the hustling Zorain, Chris Vollebregt [39] and Harry forged what was essentially the match-winning partnership. Both batsmen were patient, demonstrating good shot selection, and it again fell to skipper Rahman to assert himself [3-31], and he soon tickled the stumps of both batsmen with some beautifully flighted slow left-arm fare. This bought in Mellor and Ujjal to the crease, accompanied by much banter and sledging. Ujjal looked in good touch, but was again deceived by Joe, much to his horror and Joe’s delight. Thereupon followed a mini-collapse, and there was a sense of a possible wobble on the cards. However, there was to be a ‘Part II’ in the Mellor vs. Rahman encounter, as Mellor lifed Joe for two enormous and high sixes, over the shed and towards the main path. Zorain was also brought back into the attack, and the Zorain vs. Mellor clash was a pleasure to watch from slip, as the whippy left-armer cut through Mellor’s defences and generally kept him ‘honest’ and subdued - except for one memorable, sledgehammered, short-arm cut that crunched a boundary through point for four. And so it was that Mellor [29*] took Strongroom Roy to a well-earned victory, and so supplied Ujjal with ultimate bragging rights. Team Rahman were probably 30 runs shy of a truly testing target, and lacked the bowling firepower to dislodge a tenacious Roy line-up. But overall...it was a good game of creeket.
Written By: J.Gower
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