Printer-friendly pageSunday, April 2, 2006
Some 23 of the tour party retreated to Kandy at 7am this morning (1am UK time) to lick their wounds and discuss tactics after an agonising defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka's rotarians by the narrow margin of 192 runs in a 35-over match.
Steve, Andy and John went golfing, Johnny Quinn is doing something with his laptop and Neil Hotston stayed by the pool, working on his sunburn (to the concern of the pool lifeguards, who have already had to rub special fluids into his red raw legs. Photo of lifeguard kneeling in front of Neil held by Dave Thomas).
Match report from Andy Jones goes like this (and log on to www.timesonline.co.uk/travellogs) for more tsunami-related news from the tour.
SRI LANKA ROTARIANS V LONDON SAINTS at Wesley College, Colombo, Sri Lanka, Sunday January 22, 2006.
Weather: Hot (31 deg C) and dry.
SRI LANKA ROTARIANS 279-5 (35 overs)
(Lakshman 39 ret, Shahaaj 36 ret, Devaraj 36 ret, Sanjeewa 35 ret, Lidul 34, Leslie 31, Wathan 1-12, Kumar 1-22, Rogers 1-42, Keenan 1-43)
LONDON SAINTS 87 (27.2 overs)
(Griffiths 18 n o, Kumar 16, Ramdial 15)
Rotarians won by 192 runs.
AFTER 18 months of planning, the moment had finally arrived as skipper Dave Thomas set off for the first delivery of the first game of the London Saints Cricket Club’s 25th anniversary tour of Sri Lanka. Pre-match nerves had been focused into whoops of encouragement from his team-mates as DT launched his first ball.
Fast, on a full length, just outside off stump – a perfect tester for any opening batsmen.
Behind the stumps, Gary Speedtwin, Andy Jones and Eric Shadick waited for the outside edge that would give the team a glorious start. But instead of the anticipated defensive shot or nervous swish, opening bat Sanjeewa effortlessly caressed the ball through the covers (well, through Phil Rogers actually) for a four. You could almost hear the collective gasp from the team.
When the second and fourth balls were treated with similar disdain we were beginning to wonder what we had let ourselves in for. It was going to be a long day in the 30-plus degree heat. What we did not realise at the time was that Sanjeewa was a former opening bat for the Sri Lankan Test team. Thank goodness tour organisers Kumar and DT had the presence of mind to limit the number of runs per batsman to 35.
In Sanjeewa’s case it was effectively a forfeit and he was soon back in the pavilion having scored 32 of his runs in boundaries as London Saints struggled to chase his shots in the heat. Sadly for the tourists he was not the only opponent who was several classes above us and soon three other batsmen had raced unbeaten to their allotted 35, and a fourth was out for 34, deceived by a Paul Wathan yorker.
Despite the rapid rate of scoring there were some notable individual efforts.
DT bowled well by our normal standards and his 0-36 off his three overs was a sober reminder of the difference between the sides.
His opening bowling partner Phil Rogers, possibly the fittest London Saint, who incredibly bowled five overs of accurate swing in succession – starting with a maiden and then a wicket maiden – with no runs conceded from his first 16 balls. The run rate was steady around eight runs an over, although it was slowed briefly when John “Wheelie Bin” Griffiths and Steve “Lord Lucan” Keenan bowled in tandem – with Steve claiming his first wicket in Asia when Joe “Rammas” Ramdial brilliantly caught a skier. Kumar also temporarily stemmed the flow with a tidy spell of 4 overs picking up 1 wicket for 22 in the process.
Both Wath and Lord Lucan were dreadfully unlucky not to grab a second wicket each. Everyone went up for an audible edge that Gary Speedtwin seemed to have snaffled behind the stumps, but Umpire Dave “Smudger” turned down the appeal and the batsman stood his ground. The same umpire, clearly determined not to show any favouritism to the Saints, also declined a nifty Speedtwin stumping off his Lordship’s off cutters. This time the batsman was prepared to walk, only for Smudger to shake his bearded head and cry “not out.” The innings eventually closed with the Sri Lanka Rotarians reaching a formidable 279 for 5.
London Saints openers got the reply off to a slow, but steady start. A useful contribution from the ever dependable Kumar (16) took the tourists to 43 for 2 before the dreaded condition that is the LSSC batting collapse showed that it is not confined to the pitches of North London and South Somerset. Wickets fell with monotonous regularity. The Rotarians’ bowling was tight, if not the bamboozling spin that we had feared and most of the departing batsmen were victims of poor shot selection as much as googlies and dousras.
Pete Berkley, beginning his tour stumped for 0, returned to the pavilion exclaiming that his “bat was on the line”, only to be told that on the line is out. Neil “Barry” Hotson played a typically explosive 3-ball innings dot ball/expansive shot for 4/bowled. Phil Rogers, meanwhile, having also failed to trouble the scorers, proceeded to have an almighty sulk on the boundary, but soon got over it.
For the statisticians, a particularly pleasing moment came when Eric Shaddick (all-time squad number 1) and Paul Wathan (no.3) shared (albeit briefly) a partnership, just as they had some 25 years ago when the LSCC first took to the cricket pitches of north London. The inevitable defeat was briefly stemmed by a last wicket partnership of 20 between the skipper and Wheelie Bin, including a notable first, an all-run “Fat Boy” 3 in the dry Sri Lankan heat which had their team mates astounded.
Man of the Match – John “Wheelie-Bin” Griffiths for a tidy, though wicketless, spell and a swashbuckling 18 not out.
Champagne Moment – the opening two balls of the tour; one that has been 18 months in the planning, at a cost of £30,000 plus and several thousand more in fundraising (much thanks to his own stupendous efforts), DT’s steaming (literally) in with the new ball carried such great expectations. Both it and the second delivery were good balls that would certainly have troubled any of our usual opponents. But it’s not everyday that you get to bowl to a former Sri Lanka Test Player . . .
