Mitch and Riaz do the business
Highgate Wood, 6/13/2015
Strongroom won by 3 wickets
Village: 187 [S.Harty 54, T.Moore 4-53]
Strongroom: 188-7 [M.Nicholson 119*]
View the Scorecard
Mitch and Riaz put on 71 run for the eighth wicket as Strongroom registered a memorable three wicket victory over Village.
After five consecutive losses, we arrived at Highgate Wood slightly low on confidence but morale boosted by a very strong looking squad. Although the weather was cloudy throughout, rain thankfully remained at bay.
Strongroom won the toss and Mitch decided to bowl first upon assessing the overcast conditions. Tim and Vinay opened the bowling and bowled tidy lines but the Village openers looked very good and scored at a brisk pace. Mitch’s trap to the left hander De Mellow, to encourage him to drive, almost paid dividends but the sharp chance at gully went down. Just as we were looking at a long day in the field, Tim stuck with the last ball of his spell, bowling De mellow with a lovely yorker. The pendulum swung quickly in Strongroom’s favour when Vinay and Joe got four wickets in the next five overs to reduce Village from a comfortable looking 59 for 0 to 65 for 5. Horty and Abbas then put on 61 runs for the seventh wicket as Village tried to put on a reasonable total. Horty looked particularly good and scored a very good fifty before being caught by a brilliant one-handed catch by the diving Mitch at cover. Tim returned in the closing overs to clean out the tail but Village managed to post a challenging target of 188. Joe was again the pick of our bowlers, finishing with 3 for 22 off his eight straight overs with his multiple variations bamboozling the batsmen.
Tea was brought by Asif from the Muswell Hill bakery and was divided into Veg, Halal and Meat options to cater to everyone’s needs- a thoughtful gesture appreciated by the opposition.
Strongroom opened with the explosive pairing of Hassan and Mitch. Hassan had one of his typical swipes of a slower ball from Thompson and was caught in gully without troubling the scorers. Harry and Mitch went about rebuilding the innings and looked in complete control. Harry looked in ominous form with a couple of exquisite cover drives to the boundary of Naz but was caught out trying to hit the other De Mellow out of the park. One brings two, brings three brought four as Vinay, Jimmy, Tim and Joe fell in quick succession as part of a tribute act to Strongroom collapses of old to have us reeling at 117 for 7, still 71 runs away with only 12 overs remaining. With Village smiles getting ever broader and victory almost assured, Riaz walked in to accompany Mitch who was playing a captain knock’s and just needed someone to stick around on the other end. Riaz typically opened his account with a reverse sweep - a perfect shot to calm the fraying nerves of our dressing room but soon settled down and was a brilliant foil for Mitch. Together they ran quick doubles, stole overthrows and ran Village ragged. Riaz might lack the technique but he more than makes up for it by the sheer nous of the game, honed from playing the sport for years- and it was his three boundaries of Village's best bowler of the day, De Mellow, which finally broke Village's resistance.
But the day and the game belonged to our stand in skipper, Mitch, who played an innings which will go down in Strongroom’s folklore, to be spoken about whenever we go on tours and during late nights at the Woodman's.They tried to bowl short, he pulled them for four. They tried to bowl full, he drove them to the boundary. They tried spin, they tried pace. They tried aggression they tried peace yet he was still there at the end and finished the game off by spanking Cressy for three consecutive boundaries to finish on 119. It was simply a privilege to watch an innings of this quality when the pressure of the scoreboard was on to take the team almost singlehandedly to the finish line, something which is sadly still on the to-do list of Sachin. Take a bow Mitch, and thank you for the entertainment.
Written By: V.Venkateshan
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