Sanket stars with bat and ball as West Herts are brushed aside

Turning up to a game when it’s raining is becoming boring this season, especially when the weather has been nice all week. The overnight rain had been temporarily replaced with fine weather before showers returned. The wicket looked pretty hard in spite of the weather but I lost the toss and the West Herts skipper put us in to bat. The opening bowlers bowled with a decent if wide line, good pace and bounce, and were tricky to get away. Zaf Basit and Lee Crocker made steady progress, with Crocker dispatching anything loose with his traditional relish, until, having already miscued a long hop which dropped short of mid on, he hit a full toss from Balaji Chandrababu slightly better and it carried to the same fielder – how many times does a bad ball get a wicket? Zaf (12) followed a few overs later, adjudged LBW by the home umpire who kindly officiated at both ends for both innings (34/2). Jonny Gahan played some lovely shots before being out caught for 22 off the bowling of Ryan Magee (50/3). Dave Knight (0) followed in the same over (50/4) to bring Dan Butcher to the crease, playing his first full game of the season. Sanket had taken the unprecedented step of playing himself in and together with Dan put on 64 runs from the next 10 overs, with Dan playing topspin forehands and Sanket batting in his unique style. With the score on 114, Dan was finally out for 20 caught at extra cover off Chandrababu. Sunny Raval, one of the better number 7 batsmen in Div 10 came in, but departed for 2, again caught of Chandrababu (118/6). Incoming batsman Shahme Farook then played a very responsible innings, giving Sanket the strike on the odd occasion when Sanket couldn’t nick it himself, and Sanket proceeded to batter the West Herts bowlers, with the ball landing on the fortunately deserted tennis court on 3 occasions. Sanket and Shahme put on 74, with Sanket finally deploying the reverse sweep whilst in the 90’s, prompting brief thoughts of an early declaration. Shahme (15) was finally bowled by Magee, the pick of the West Herts bowlers (192/7). With maximum batting points and declaration in mind, Dave Flavell strode to the crease and Sanket duly got us past 200. Flavell was out caught at mid off in the 50th over and the declaration immediately followed on 206/8, leaving West Herts 50 overs to chase the total.

A lovely homemade tea was taken and the bowling was opened with Pryank Patel and Shahme Farook using the old ball. Pryank bowled his usual steady lines but Shahme’s lack of game time this season showed and a long over which included long hops, full tosses and several wides/no balls lead to his replacement by Dave Flavell. The two opening batsmen were showing contrasting styles, with Anwar Haq blocking everything and Nandana De Silva smashing everything. This strategy proved effective for a few overs until Flavell yorked De Dilva (16) (26/1). Captain Amyn Haider came in at number 3 and played a captains innings, combining solid defence with aggressive punishment of the occasional loose ball. The new ball was taken and Sunny Raval and Ajay Bhatia, playing his first game for the 2’s this season, both used the new ball to maximum advantage and bowled beautiful spells. Sunny was swinging the ball in and seaming it away to bamboozle the batsmen and Ajay bowling a lovely wobbly away swing into the corridor of uncertainty. Sunny finally removed opener Haq with a brute of a delivery which reared up, hit the glove and looped to Dan Butcher at gully (36/2). Shortly afterwards Dan had to take emergency evasive action from a much faster edge which threatened to knock some sense into him. Ajay then proceeded to rip the guts out of the West Herts middle order with dismissals of Tom Gilthorpe (2), well caught just off the ground at second slip by Shahme, Jack Adair (2), also well caught on his toes at gully by Sunny and Rajan Gurung (0) caught behind by Zaf. Dave Knight bowled his first spell for the 2’s of 5 overs for 8 runs while at the other end Sanket finished with the ball what he had started with the bat, though with a lot less style. Bowling his usual frustrating mixture of unplayable balls, long hops and full tosses, Sanket had a catch taken by Ajay at square leg, a disallowed catch by Sunny off a high no ball at cover followed by a low catch by Sunny. Sanket then ended the innings of the West Herts captain caught for 54 by Dave Knight at mid off, despite Sanket’s best efforts to put Dave off by screaming “Catch it, catch it” just as Dave was doing precisely that. The West Herts innings was completed by Sanket having Liam Crain caught, again by Ajay at square leg, and number 11 batsman Gopi Narayanamoorthy stumped by Zaf.

Conclusions It was Sanket’s best day in a Mill Hill Village shirt – if he had one! 114 not out and 5 for 18 is an effort rarely bested – apart from Naz getting 116* and 6 for 26 playing for the 1’s on the same afternoon. Sanket got us out of a sticky position on 50/4 against accurate bowling to allow a declaration on maximum batting points to give us 50 overs to bowl at West Herts, and was well supported by Jonny, Dan and Shahme. Fortunately Sanket is away for a few weeks otherwise Dave would have undoubtedly nicked him for the 1’s, and by the time he is back Dave will hopefully have forgotten about him. Ajay Bhatia made an excellent 2’s debut for this year, taking 3 wickets for 19 with ‘proper’ dismissals, and Sunny Raval not only bowled beautifully but had managed to put his hands on the right way this week, taking all three catches (one from a no ball) which came his way.

West Herts are better that their league position suggests, with a very solid bowling lineup, and having played Cockfosters (currently 6th), Preston (5th), Flitwick (1st), Datchworth (4th) and the Village (2nd) in consecutive weeks should have more successful times ahead of them.

Mill Hill Village II 30 points, West Herts 3 points