Strongroom sneak a win!
North London Cricket Club, Crouch End, 7/14/2011
Strongroom won by 41 runs
Strongroom: 126-9
Bohemians: 108-9
View the Scorecard
On an overcast day the two teams struggled to arrive for the rather hopeful 6.00 start time but by 6.30 acting captain Joe Rahman had won the toss for Strongroom and decided to bat on the notoriously uneven North London Cricket Club pitch.
Zorain and I opened the batting and we got off to a breezey start with a couple of Jon Gower-esque cover drives alongside Zorain’s powerful backfoot strokeplay. Sadly, it didn’t take long for the wickets to start to tumble as yours truly played around a straight one before Sumer quickly followed first ball, perhaps guilty of being over ambitious in trying to dance down the wicket. Karan Khangura and Vicki chipped in with useful scores and Rahman, revelling in the responsilbity of skipper, offered resistance in getting 18. Dave Howells, on Strongroom debut, played some attractive shots and ended up with a red-inker ensuring we made full use of our allotted 20 overs. The wickets were spread around the Bohemians with Shah and Mishra being the pick of the bowlers. On the small ground with an extremely fast outfield, Strongroom’s batsmen were guilty of not converting starts into scores with the ever reliable extras being the top contributer with 25. Would Strongroom’s total of 126 prove challenging enough?
The new ball opening partnership of Mike Gabbay and Karan Katariya was effective in keeping the runs down, Mike settling into a nice rhythm after an initial wayward over and Karan bowled with good pace and swing. However, it took a brave (and game changing) decision from Rahman to selflessly bring himself on before any wickets were lost, as he promptly bagged numbers one, two and three. Lonen falling thanks to an extremely good catch from Guy Wilson. Shah came in and batted powerfully with some lusty blows taking him to 28. However, Bohemians never threatened the run rate and after a particularly useful spell from Zohrain (in the near darkness) knocked over a couple more batsmen, the run-rate had climbed too high. Luigi bowling a tidy spell ensuring the Bohemians stayed below the rate. With the evening drawing in the ball became very difficult to see and eventually Bohemians limped to 85 – a full 41 runs short of Strongroom.
Written By: J.Hall
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