Back to back wins

We travelled up to Little Chalfont for the second league game of the season against Chorleywood IIIs, who had beaten us last year using only 2 bowlers, chasing down the target of 140 in 57 of the 72 allotted overs for 8 wickets down. The new 50 over format would prevent this happening if we could see off the openers….

The toss was lost and we were unsurprisingly asked to bat on the green pitch at Westwood Park with a similar slope to our home pitches. Zaf Basit and Lawrence Bird opened the innings against the experienced pair of Nigel Tyler and Steve Dunning and although progress was slow, the plan of surviving the openers was working until Zaf (3) was adjudged LBW by the home umpire in the 7th over looking to clip off his legs down the hill (9/1). With Loz solidly defending one end, Hassan Shafique pushed the score on with some aggressive shots before being yorked for 13 in first change bowler Mark Fletcher’s first over (22/2 off 12 overs). Lee Crocker continued his good early season form by tucking into the change bowlers with Loz and the score pushed on rapidly until Lee played a clip off his legs too early and was unlucky to spoon the ball off the back of his bat to wicketkeeper Noormohammed, leaving him regretting that he hadn’t asked the bat makers to knock in the back of his bat too (53/3 in 18 overs). Pete Jaffe got the first golden duck of the season out LBW (53/4). Loz and Darshan Raval sensibly battened down the hatches and pushed along until Loz became the third LBW victim attempting to pull a ball he clearly thought was going down the slope (85/5, 33rd over). Murtuza Amin (7) livened matters up with a big 6 over extra cover, before unluckily (97/6, 37th over) falling to a wonderful juggling caught and bowled whilst the bowler was falling over Darshan. Shahme Farook made 9 but was bowled by the returning Tyler (111/7), followed by Darshan (34) lobbing up a catch to mid on (119/8). Flavell (1) followed next ball snicking one to the keeper (119/9) and Ali Javed (11) had a brief cameo before holing out at deep midwicket, with the innings ending on 132 in the 44th over.

We knew we had to make inroads into the Chorleywood batting to give us a good chance of winning and the opening attack duly obliged with Ali Javed bowling a beauty which rose for Charles Hardcastle (4) to snick to Zaf in the first over (4/1). Darshan Raval struck in the second over with a cunning full toss which Martin Tyler struck to Lee Crocker at mid on (4/2). The collapse continued in the third over with Chris Lee (5) again falling to Javed and Basit (10/3). Darshan then bowled Gulam Sherali (0) in the 4th over (10/4) and Ali produced another jaffa snaffled by Jaffe at first slip (10/5, 5th over) to leave the Chorleywood innings in tatters. It’s not often that the 5th and 7th batsmen have to see off the opening bowlers, but Mike Reeve and Steve Dunning set about the task and the score crawled along to 26 before Reeve was given out LBW to one that he thought he edged onto his pads (26/6). The resistance stubbornly continued until Ajay Bhatia had Steve Dunning (13) caught at square leg by Hassan Shafique (34/7), thanks to the cunning field placing of Pete Jaffe forcing him to play a shot somewhere other than midwicket. Mark Fletcher (1) followed shortly afterwards, lobbing a catch to Hassan at cover off Murtuza Amin (37/8). Hamid Noormohammed and captain Robert Dunstone then put together the first significant partnership of the innings with Noomohammed carefully selecting which balls to club. Dunstone finally fell to a ball that didn’t bounce bowled by Shahme (56/9). At this point our tight bowling and fielding had managed to bring the run rate into the equation with 85 required from the last 17 overs at 5 an over, a big ask with only one wicket left. Noormohammed and Nigel Tyler had a brief heave ho until Flavell finally bowled Tyler a straight one to conclude the game on 84 in the 41st over.

On paper, a win by 48 runs looks convincing, but anyone playing in the game would know that we could have posted a larger total with more considered batting and we need to bat 50 overs when asked to bat first. The bowling and fielding were largely excellent but we can’t rely on Darshan and Ali reducing the opposition to 10 for 5 every week. Still, two wins from two is a decent start to the season and leaves us joint top with Boxmoor IIs.

Mill Hill Village IIs 30 points, Chorleywood IIIs 10 points