Not quite the start we were looking for

Well the first league game of the season didn’t quite go to plan. We turned up at a moist Southgate Compton to find a grassy outfield but a not too damp looking square. Skipper Zaf, deputising for Umpire Downes, lost the toss and the opposition skipper put us into bat – quite a brave decision given that we scored 275 for 2 in the same fixture last year, though it was about 20 degrees warmer on that occasion.
Piers cracked the first ball away for a misfielded 4 on the short boundary to take us to our best position of the whole day. The opener from the other end surprised Zaf ‘Huey’ Basit with his first ball which shot up off a length and found the outside edge, only for the keeper to palm a very catchable one hander to first slip who fortunately didn’t fancy it either. Zaf left the fourth ball of the over which to his considerable surprise nipped back quite a way and clipped the off stump (4-1).
Runs were proving very hard to get on the Southgate savannah as shots which would easily go for 4 on a normal pitch got held up in the outfield. Rory McLeod quickly settled in and looked comfortable. The ball was coming through slowly and Piers spooned a catch to Mid Off leaving us at 11-2. This brought the late-arriving Naz into the middle who started in his usual aggressive manner. Naz and Rory posted the highest partnership of the innings, a mighty 15 until Naz was bowled for 4 by the last ball of the openers spell (26-3). In strode our ringer, Marcus ‘Dewey’ Cara, the 1st XI top run scorer of 2011. Clearly the standard in Division 12 is considerably higher than Division 10 as Marcus was bowled for what he claims to be his first ever golden duck by the first change bowler (27-4). Dave Flavell came in and was yorked by the same bowler in his second over (35-5), leaving the stage set for a classic Wingnut innings to steady the ship. Meanwhile, at the other end Rory who had calmly batted onto an innings high score of 20 decided to impose himself on the young off spinner and was stumped striding down the pitch (37-6), possibly not the best decision in the circumstances? Nut then got, in his own words, a shocking decision, given out LBW playing forward with a big stride on his little legs leaving us at 39 for 7 with two new batsmen Darshan Raval and Lee ‘Louie’ Crocker in the middle. As his new nickname suggests, Crocks didn’t last long, again bowled by the first change bowler who finished with figures of 4 for 7 off 4 overs (40-8). Darshan pulled the first ball of the fifth bowler for 6, only the second boundary of the innings and batted solidly for 13 valuable runs until getting bowled going back to the leftie off spinner (54-9). George Downes was the last man out leaving us a total of 55 to defend.
Unsurprisingly we turned straight round, needing quick wickets. Birju bowled his usual tight lines and was rewarded with a plumb LBW decision to dismiss the ‘one shot’ opener. Darshan bowled a mixture of long hops and good balls until getting the other opener out bowled off an inside edge. Batsmen 3 and 4 then effectively killed the game off with a steady if never comfortable partnership, taking Southgate to 55-2 to tie the scores. George Downes then removed batsman 3 with another plumb LBW (55-3). At the other end Wingnut had been bowling tightly and had batsman 4 well caught looking to slog the winning runs by Legs at mid off (55-4). Nut then bowled the new batsman for the second Golden Duck of the game, leaving him on a hat trick to continue the somewhat unlikely comeback at 55-5. The hat trick was avoided and Southgate scored the winning runs.

Conclusions – Clearly we didn’t score enough runs, but our middle order was removed by their first change bowler who by a remarkable coincidence shared the same name as their first team captain, who took 37 wickets in Division 5 last year…….. It’s early days and perhaps this is a good way to lull the rest of the Division into what we hope is a false sense of security.