The 2’s winning run continues against fellow contenders Watford IIIs

This weeks game was away to Watford Town III’s who had won Division 13 last year with 14 wins and only a single loss. This year they had won the 3 games played with teams seeming very keen to not play them. We turned up with a weakened batting lineup, missing both of last weeks openers (Zaf and George) and Sanket, whilst Watford were missing their ‘75mph opening bowler who has 19 wickets from their 3 games this season’.

Richard Downes bucked the trend of previous games and actually won a toss, leaving him with a dilemma as Rory who was going to either open or keep wicket was feeling a bit peaky – not his guts this time. Downesy elected to bat, with the untried partnership of Piers Jenkins and Lee Crocker. The innings began well, with Crocker looking to score from any loose balls in the face of some accurate bowling down the hill by J Mohammed (Mohand?). Crocker (6) then unluckily played on, misreading the length of a ball from Mohammed and getting an inside edge (7-1). John Bird came in at 3 and looked defensively solid before chasing a ball outside off with a half-hearted drive caught in the covers off Mohammed for the first but not the last duck of the day (10-2). Pete Jaffe came in at 4 to steady the ship and played in his usual sensible fashion, defending well and punishing the bad balls. Meanwhile, at the other end Piers had pushed and prodded his way to 9 before being caught off the bowling of Vyas up the hill (26-3). Wingnut was in next and established an effective partnership with Jaffe which took us to 41 before Jaffe was also caught off half a cover drive and Burton also played on in consecutive balls from Mohammed (41-5). This brought Dave Flavell and Rory Macleod to the crease with our innings looking a bit iffy and Rory feeling more than a bit squiffy. Both batsmen dug in with Rory looking the more aggressive until Flavell (4) middled a backward defensive shot which popped up to Silly Mid Off who just managed to take the catch diving forward, again off Mohammed (64-6). Fortunately MHV 2’s bat well down the order and Darshan Raval began to mount the rescue mission. Unfortunately the mission was prematurely terminated from the 5th ball which Darshan faced, yorked to give Mohammed his 5th wicket and Darshan his third consecutive duck (68-7). At this point, we were facing our second loss of the season with the prospect of no batting points.

Richard Downes chugged in at 9 and immediately dropped anchor, leaving as much of the strike as possible to Rory. Their partnership was the crucial turning point as Rory played an increasingly aggressive innings and Downes sensibly contributed as they steered the ship past the three batting point targets (110, 125 and 140) before Rory was caught at first slip off Baldwin for what would turn out to be a matchwinning 59 and MHV on 140-8. This innings had also taken us from the 25th to the 43rd over, thus bringing run rate into the equation for the Watford reply. It was fortunate that Macleod and Downes batted so well as Birju Lukka was caught off the next ball at cover for the 2’s second Golden Duck of the season - the first being Marcus Cara’s first ball of the season in case anyone had forgotten! Last man Ajay Bhatia sliced a drive to third man for 2 before Downesy was caught at midwicket to give us the one time unlikely looking total of 142 all out from 44.3 overs. Watford’s opening bowler Mohammed/Mohand bowled down the hill throughout the entire innings to finish with 6 for 47 off 22.3 overs.

Would this total be enough? In previous games Watford had lost wickets chasing small totals so we were quietly confident that our unrelenting bowling attack would give us a good chance. Watford started with a combination of defence and aggression, with many shots going in the air including one dropped off a skier by Jon Bird – in his defence, the strong wind didn’t help taking these catches – and a tricky one put down at square leg by Darshan off Ajay Bhatia’s bowling. The Watford innings got to a worrying 37 before Wingnut removed aggressive opener Murad LBW for 9 (37-1). The other opener was then well caught by Lee Crocker off Darshan’s bowling, having already survived a caught and bowled attempt by Darshan (39-2). The third wicket partnership then pushed the score on to 56 before a fine diving caught and bowled gave Burton his second wicket of R Traxon for 6 (56-3). Nutty followed this up with another LBW to leave Watford on 60-4. L Baldwin batting at three was removed caught and bowled by Birju for a stubborn 17 (76-5). A Abbas then launched into the Village bowling, smashing a lively and definitely not chanceless 13 before Jon Bird caught him excellently off a towering pull to deep midwicket from the tempting short bowling of Lee Crocker (78-6). This effectively marked the end of Watfords chances of winning the game, with wickets falling regularly at one end in spite of the excellent defensive effort of J Singh (19), last man out LBW to Nut for his 5th wicket. Watford all out for 104 off 42.2 overs, with only 2.4 overs left to bat.

Conclusions This will likely prove to be one of the most important games of the season as Watford will be in the mix for promotion. Our weakened batting lineup was shaky in response to some accurate bowling from Mohammed until Rory MacLeod and Richard Downes doubled the innings total for the 8th wicket. Nutty bowled well and was rewarded with 3 LBWs from the fair umpiring of Watford – he’d have had an aneurysm if we were still playing in Middlesex – to end up with 5 for 27. Dropped catches fortunately didn’t cost us as our tight as ever bowling made scoring runs difficult and chances came at regular intervals.

Mill Hill Village 30 points, Watford III 10.