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Stormclouds gather over London Saints v Gents of West London. Below: Pete Berkeley fights for his vice-captaincy, and the crowd outside the main pavilion
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
35 over match at Tolworth
Gents of West London 201 for 6
London Saints 128 for 9
Report by Peter Berkeley
With Southern England treated to a deluge on Sunday morning any possibility of play was unlikely. The respective organisers agreed around 10am to cancel the match as it appeared that the bad weather was to continue. A quick ring round to all the players and plans were underway for the more traditional Sunday pursuits of lunchtime pints followed by footie on TV.
However, an hour later saw a few rays of sunshine and we decided that we were not happy to accept that Summer was over so the match was on again after more phone calls.
Incredibly we managed to get away with 4 and half hours of cricket totally uninterrupted despite being played against a backdrop of heavy storms with forked lightning. And yet as soon as the players left the field, the heavens opened.
Gents score may not have reflected it but London Saints team was heavily biased towards bowling with no recognised batsmen present.
For the fourth time in the past year, I was given the honour of captaining the team in DT’s absence and I now have a tossing record of:
Tossed 4, won 4!
Unfortunately, the playing record is:
Played 4, lost 4!
Quite frankly, having won it I didn’t have a clue what to do (secretly wished I’d lost it) but chose to field for two reasons. One being that we had a fine quality bowling line-up and would no doubt skittle Gents out for next to nothing and secondly that it was about to chuck it down and the game would never get finished anyway!
Eight bowlers were used in total, and on another day Garry Burrell and Wath would have turned their respective arms.
Little John and ‘Swampy’ Frood took the first 10 overs and bowled extremely well, beating the bat regularly and deserved more than the one wicket in that period – Arran taking Denton via the safe hands of Dave Nanton.
The Wath caught the other opener, Buck, off Gavin Van Marle’s bowling. However, respective bats 3 and 4, Patel and Hussain proved to be the backbone of Gents innings as the run rate increased. When Patel holed out to Gavin from Steve Keenan’s bowling we looked as we were making inroads – the catching was first class with only one spillage (see Champagne moment)!
Then came the game’s moment of controversy! Wahed, facing his second ball from Keenan received a ball that reared up and in attempting to fend of the delivery appeared to brush his gloves on the way to being claimed by wicketkeeper Speedtwin. We’re sometimes guilty of not being vociferous enough in our appealing, but not this time – all eyes went to the umpire and to the player expecting to see him walk. It was not to be and Wahed went on to bat superbly for his 36 not out.
To be fair, Gents are the most sporting of teams and I’m sure that if they felt there was any doubt, the wicket would have been given.
Martin Dewhirst bowled well and deservedly took a couple before, in true DT style, I messed up who was to bowl the important final overs, intending to bring John Loomes back for overs 33 and 35 – trouble was Dewy was already bowling over 33 before I realised it. Ignoring memories of Little John’s final over versus Norton when he went for 20 he was bought back to face Wahed and Sanjay who were in fine fettle – he went for just 3 runs – an excellent final over.
The impending storms meant for a quick turnaround which saw John Griffiths and The Wath open.
Snarler versus Wath developed into the most entertaining period of the game as Wath decided that we should get ahead of the run rate from the start which basically meant him playing the only way he knows. Wath top edged Snarler for 14 following a period of Wath swinging his bat and Snarler, well, Snarling!
As a result of Saturday night beer enduced bragging of his batting abilities, Steve Keenan wiped away his nosebleed and came in at 3 and played some impressive shots but as he got in, he then got out! This was to be the order of the innings.
Gents’ bowling was tight and proving difficult to get away. With an eye on the increasing required run rate, rash shots were played with the inevitable results.
John Griffiths and Garry Burrell stayed around longer than the rest but long before the end of the 35 overs it was clear that our only chance of a result was the overhanging storm clouds.
Champagne moment
On a day when every chance offered was snapped up, Steve Keenan, not the youngest member of the team, had the ball blasted at him off his own bowling and came close to taking the catch of the season. Instead, the ball bounced off his hands and Steve’s attempts to take the ball at the second attempt saw him produce a perfect horizontal belly flop!
Man of the match
As the figures below show, there were not really any obvious candidates as no one LSSC player dominated with bat or ball. John Griffiths and Garry Burrell for their batting and Martin Dewhirst for his two wickets are ‘highly commended’ but I’m taking the unusual decision of giving it to a bowler who didn’t take any wickets but sure as hell deserved to….John Loomes.
Gents
Denton ct Nanton b Frood 11
Buck ct Wathan b Van Marle 9
D.Patel ct Van Marle b Keenan 32
Hussain ct Frood b Berkeley 36
Wahed not out 36
Carroll ct Griffiths b Dewhirst 14
H.Patel b Dewhirst 0
S.Patel not out 29
Extras 34
Total 201
Loomes 6 – 1 – 16 – 0
Frood 5 – 0 – 21 – 1
Van Marle 4 – 0 – 23 – 1
Griffiths 4 – 0 – 28 – 0
Keenan 5 – 0 – 19 – 1
Berkeley 4 – 0 – 33 – 1
Nanton 4 – 0 – 26 – 0
Dewhirst 3 – 0 – 24 – 2
London Saints
Griffiths ct S.Patel b D.Patel 19
Wathan ct S.Patel b Snelling 14
Keenan st wk b H.Patel 15
Berkeley ct & b D.Patel 13
Van Marle b H.Patel 7
Burrell not out 19
Nanton ct b Hussain 6
Dewhirst b Snelling 7
Speedtwin b S.Patel 6
Frood b S.Patel 2
Loomes not out 3
Extras 17
Total 128
Snelling 7 – 0 – 28 – 2
Wahed 4 – 0 – 12 – 0
H.Patel 7 – 0 – 21 – 2
D.Patel 7 – 2 – 27 – 2
Hussain 6 – 0 – 22 – 1
S.Patel 4 – 0 – 11 – 2
