Printer-friendly pageMonday, August 6, 2007
The long wait is over and Peter Berkeley’s run of no wins as skipper is broken!
The hottest day of the year saw a number of ‘Haberdashers’ wilt in the sun by not turning up which left them with just 7 players. Whilst it was tempting to play 11 versus 7 just to get the monkey off our back it was decided that we would lend the oppo 2 players so that we could at least have a competitive game. As we had 2 Old Haberdashers in our line up in John (once again Judas) Griffiths and Anthony Rowlands then it would be appropriate they would play for the home team. We know the problems of fielding 11 players and had 2 debut makers in our side in Richard Griffiths and Andrew Bramidge.
We won the toss and elected to bat (something we are usually afraid to do) but for a change our line up looked to be stronger in batting than bowling. Kumar Yogeswarin and Trevor Mayhew opened up in front of a capacity crowd of various generations of Griffiths and Grimes!
The wicket in use meant a short boundary and a long one. Early activity saw Kumar electing to play to the short one, therefore minimising running, whilst Trev preferred running 3’s – much to Kumar’s annoyance.
Trevor’s 41 runs were borne out of two good partnerships – the first with Kumar was ended on 42 as he presented a simple catch. The second with debutant batsman number 4, Andrew Bramidge, and they put on exactly 50 with Andrew finishing his innings by belting Griffiths.J for 6 before going lbw the next ball.
But what of batsman three I hear you ask?????
Tony Grimes was our second ‘Diamond Duck’ of the season and I’ll leave the explanation to the ‘Champagne Moment’ section at the end as it comfortably took the honours!
Andrew’s wicket made it 92 for 3 and whilst losing the next 5 wickets for 44 runs hardly constitutes a collapse in London Saints terms it was still disappointing with such a lowly score of 136, especially given the obvious gaps in the field. Despite the hot conditions, the pitch was not offering much but once again we were guilty of not batting with any patience. Batting to 35 overs would probably have got us to a total of 160-170.
Our ploy of transferring the non-Councillor to Habs in order to protect our collection of cakes backfired as he plonked himself at the head of our table and listened to our tactical team talk and scoffed all the scones and raspberry jam. The committee will sit but in my opinion one of the more disappointing teas of the season.
So onto the Hab’s innings – Garry Burrell, unusually opening the bowling, took their skipper Ali via a well taken catch at long-leg by Johnny Loomes who had to make forward strides to take the chance and did so at the second attempt. Jon then followed that up by taking their no.3 at the first attempt off his own bowling.
Tony Grimes (aka Clive Dunn) then took over by taking 3 clean bowled wickets with genuine spin and it looked as though we were in charge.
Whilst the remainder of his spell failed to take further wickets, his 7 over spell went for just 17.
However, Hills and a certain J.Griffiths put on a healthy partnership for Habs and it looked as though they had seized back the initiative until debutant Richard Griffiths lone lbw appeal bought success and Hills’ innings ended on 38. Johnny G continued with a rearguard action but when Loomes caught him on the chin it was clear he didn’t have the stomach for the fight – just leftover tea.
Johnny Loomes returned and cleaned up the last two wickets in successive balls and victory was secure.
Cue wild celebrations!!!!
Man of the match: Tricky one as Trevor’s 41 and Johnny Loomes best bowling performance to date would have taken the honours in plenty of other matches but Tony Grimes’ key early wickets put us in charge. He takes MOM despite the following….
Champagne moment: So Tony boldly walked to the innings at number 3 with a view to building on our solid start. Kumar’s wicket was last ball of the over so Tony got to watch from the non-striking end. A couple of balls later Trevor guided a leg sided delivery down to John Griffiths fielding at long leg. They ran a comfortable single and as they passed, Trevor joked, ‘two there Tony, it’s only your son-in-law’. Trouble is alternative humour isn’t aimed at Tony’s generation so he set off for the second – no chance!
London Saints
Kumar ct.Clarke b.U.Ali 16
Mayhew ct.wk b. S.Ali 41
Grimes run out 0
Bramidge lbw J.Griffiths 24
Loomes bowled Rowlands 2
R.Griffiths bowled S.Ali 10
Chalmers st. b. Rowlands 11
Burrell lbw b. Rowlands 2
Berkeley not out 3
Extras 27
Total 136 all out
Jones 7 0 35 1
Clarke 3 1 25 0
U.Ali 2 0 2 1
J.Griffiths 7 1 36 1
S.Ali 5 1 7 2
Rowlands 4.2 0 14 3
Corney 1 0 11 1
Old Haberdashers
U.Ali ct.Loomes b. Burrell 10
Corney bowled Grimes 15
Inigherd bowled Loomes 0
Clarke bowled Grimes 10
Hills lbw R.Griffiths 38
Jones bowled Grimes 0
J.Griffiths bowled Loomes 11
Rowlands bowled Loomes 0
S.Ali not out 12
Extras 11
Total 107 all out
Loomes 6.3 1 20 3
Burrell 4 0 14 1
Berkeley 4 0 17 0
Grimes 7 0 17 3
R.Griffiths 5 0 25
