2's fall just short in low scoring nailbiter

After missing out on a game the previous week we were glad to get back on the field on a sunny but windy afternoon. The Shenley captain won the toss and put us into bat. Lee Crocker (9) immediately tucked into the Shenley opening bowlers Kaling's looseners but was bowled by a fine ball which seamed back up the slope (10/1, 2nd over). Zaf Basit and Andrew Teague made steady progress until the other opener Peter Oakley struck twice in the 9th over, with Andrew (7) drilling a ball straight to Silly Mid Off and Anand Verma (0) being bowled (33/3). Zaf (16) was unlucky to be caught out two overs later, pulling a ball straight to backward square leg, who parried the ball into the air one handed then caught it (36/4). The two new batsmen, Anand Kumar and Pulkit Ohja, then put together a solid partnership, defending solidly and punishing any loose balls, pushing the score on nicely until Pulkit (13) was trapped plumb LBW by a ball which didn't bounce (69/5, 19th over). Shash Seem (0) miscued a defensive prod to Silly Mid Off in the following over (74/6), bringing in Ali Javed, who played sensibly and gave the in-form Anand the strike whenever possible. The pair pushed the score along to 106 when Ali (4) attempted a pull to a short ball which again kept low and was unluckily given out LBW to a ball which he got a thin edge on. Sanket (5) defended well for a while but was suckered into taking a big swing and a miss to a straight ball from the vocal Shenley bowler Kevin Wood (116/8). Dave Flavell (1) played on shortly after and Pryank Patel ended his long run of being not out with a golden duck by being bowled by the next ball leaving Anand stranded on 45 not out and the Village total at 118 all out from only 31 overs.

With such a meagre total to defend, an early breakthrough was essential, and Shash duly obliged with his first ball which flicked the top of off stump to remove the Shenley opener (7/1, 2nd over). Ali Javed then bowled Shenley captain James Williams (4) behind his legs to reduce Shenley to 13/2 in the next over. Shenley then rallied with both batsmen defending solidly and punishing any loose balls, taking the score to 54 when Anand had opener Andy Elliott (23) caught off a leading edge at short midwicket by Pryank Patel in his first over. Pulkit then struck twice in the 21st over, having Paras Borkhatria (5) well caught at midwicket by Shash and James Davenall (25) caught at mid off by the skipper to make the game interesting at 65/5. Pulkit then trapped Barry Posener (0) LBW (70/6). Shenley dug in again with Mitesh Damji swinging aggressively and Kevin Wood blocking until Damji swung across the line once too often and was bowled for 15 by Pryank Patel (92/7, 36th over). The score crawled on at about 1 per over with a very tight ring field set and Shenley not taking any chances when Dave Flavell swung the game back in the Village's favour having Madan Kaling (4) caught behind by Zaf off a leading edge, followed by bowling Shyam Borkhatria first ball to give us a good chance of winning at 99/9 in the 41st over. With singles hard to come by and close fielders surrounding the bat, young number 11 Peter Oakley decided to chance his arm, just clearing Ali Javed at extra cover before hitting the winning runs over midwicket in the 48th over to clinch a hard-fought victory.
It was probably one of those games where a little bit of luck with a number of our batting dismissals would have made all the difference to the result. Zaf, Pulkit, Ali and Legs were all slightly unfortunate to be dismissed, and with Anand Kumar looking comfortable in top-scoring on 45*, one decent partnership could have put enough pressure on the Shenley lower order to allow us to get the final wicket in a low scoring game. Our bowling and fielding were excellent, with no catches dropped but we were probably 20 runs short of a victory undeserved due to our frail batting display.

Mill Hill Village II 10 points, Shenley Village III 30 points