Strongroom soundly beaten in wind and stodge fest
Highgate Wood, 6/16/2012
Vilage won by 53 runs
Village: 162-7 [Littlejohns 47]
Strongroom: 109 [Woodhouse 5-36]
View the Scorecard
Everyone seemed pleased to get a full game in, played in a strong to very strong breeze and under mostly cloudy skies. The pitch was a low, slow pudding, even by Highgate standards.
Happy to have lost the toss, Strongroom never quite settled with the ball, offering too many loose deliveries from one end at a time. Still, debutant Asif bowled a good first spell, Karan picked up a wicket, and Mike settled into his dependable line and length. Sumer bowled some good stuff, newcomer Omair’s offspin looked neat when he managed to get it through the wind onto a full enough length. Rich in his first outing for 10 months probed once he settled in. Overall though, we couldn’t quite either restrict the scoring or take enough early wickets to put Village under real pressure. Too many outfield fumbles contributed to this, though Village did well to keep pressing even though wickets fail fairly regularly. Asif’s second spell was full of good variations and helped to keep something of a lid on things.
At tea both teams were probably reasonably content. We knew 163 was going to be a tough chase with a much-changed line up on a very, very soft and slow pitch. The key was likely to be whether we could bat somewhere near 40 overs.
Ted fell early, completing a tough afternoon as he was also nursing a blow to the face taken while diving to stop the ball in the field. Dave G and Rich steadied things and stayed calm even though the scoring rate sank. Village were simply better than us at bowling full and straight, and it was precarious to try and push the rate against that. Rich survived a contentious caught behind appeal and then plonked the same bowler over the score hut before pulling a high full toss to midwicket – one of several undistinguished strokes to Woodhouse, who took 5 wickets by bowling slow and seemingly innocuous but straight and full floaters. Dave G lost concentration on his 45th ball and was bowled, guilty along with Rich of not pushing on further having done some hard graft. Sumer looked in good touch but fell to what looked (to this correspondent) a harsh decision. Then the innings kind of imploded. Zak (another debutant, who had earlier turned in a tidy wicket keeping performance) looked like he can bat but fell to the deadly Woodhouse high full toss, Guy chipped a catch to midoff for a golden, Karan and Dave P (who again looked solid) were beaten by big offspin, Asif fell to a good short cover catch, and finally Omair swished at one the ball after fending off a throat-high beamer.
Once again Strongroom looked more like the away team at Highgate – failing to bowl accurately enough and getting out to some sloppy shots. There were some bright glimpses in Mike, Asif and Sumer’s bowling, Rich’s return to the team and three promising debuts.
Village provide an enjoyable and well-matched opposition, but often we have failed to show them our better cricket and are now 3-1 down against them.
Written By: D.Gower
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