Scorecard

Sandridge 2 v Pinner Cricket Club Saturday 2nd XI on Sat 15 Jul 2023 at 1300
Pinner Cricket Club Won by 6 wickets

Match report Pinner 2nd XI vs Sandridge 2nd XI

Before we get into this, a small bit of admin. Thanks @CYRUS for stepping in last week, whilst I was recovering from my potential career ending injury, with your blurb of a description of last week’s proceedings. I would also like to put forward the @KETAN challenge to all my faithful readers and would like to challenge you to finish reading this week’s report in less than an hour – please comment your times below.
After a lot of doubt about whether or not the weather would permit our all-important clash with Sandridge this week, we were given the go ahead to begin our, once again, long travels. Despite our excitement to finally get our hands on the team that seemed to be dismantling most teams with ease, there was a small amount of disappointment shared amongst a few to be missing the Roxbourne derby. A swift 48-minute drive later and we had arrived, and we quickly realised why 220 seemed to be a par score at this ground. Short boundaries, hard track, would have been a batters dream had it not been for the clouds looming overhead. After a lengthy warm up, which consisted of catching a Vortex, catching a cricket ball (or chasing in @RAJ’s case) and a stretch circle, which was not approved by @ROB, our skipper set off to try and end his 4-loss streak in tosses. After a lengthy 10-minute chat and toss between the two captains, @SIMRAN came back and signalled that we were to get ready to go into the field! (He won).

Our day out in the field was split into two halves thanks to heavy rain. The first half didn’t get off to a great start when Simran took the reigns and bowled less good than he usually does (to keep it PG). His first over consisted of two balls dropped short, one slower ball down leg side, a dropped ball in his run up, a dropped ball when being handed the ball from Rob and two boundaries, this was not the start we were looking for. He was not helped by a collector’s item in a misfield from @NIK who deservedly let one of the before mentioned short balls wrongfoot him and race away for 4. I am still convinced he did this on purpose to teach our bowling divas a lesson. Sadly, his second over wasn’t much better and this ended Simran’s day as he was ruthlessly hooked by the captain, meaning it was his first wicketless day out. 2-0-15-0. @NICHOLAS was given the task of opening from the other end and after his first ball was driven back past him for 4, we were left scratching our heads as it seemed that Sandridge were living up to our high expectations of them, luckily for us, Nick came back strong and started dotting up. If we were to remove the runs scored from the first ball of each of his overs, his figures would have been quite spectacular and would have been 4-0-14-0. Unfortunately, that’s not how this works and those 3 boundaries must be added, and he ended his day 4-0-26-0, however, for once, no life-threatening beamers were bowled today (at least at Sandridge). On came @JAMIE from the other end who came into replace Simran after his really, really subpar bowling. He came on and began strongly, keeping the scoring shots down, unfortunately, they managed to use the pace of the ball quite well and when they did score, it was usually in boundary form, helping them keep their fast-paced scoring up. After a few dubious LBW decisions that were not given by a very strict umpire (0/73 LBW appeals given across both teams), Jamie was pulled off for fear of trying to knock over the batters with his pace, but fortunately, this didn’t happen (at least at Sandridge). Jamie ended his spell with 4-0-19-0. After the opening batters had gotten Sandridge off to a T20-esque start, Rob was brought on to try and slow the pace down and he did just that by only allowing five runs off his first two overs. @KAVIT was brought on the other end and matched this total in his first 5 balls, before a flash of lightening struck in the fields behind us and the match was interrupted. Off we ran at 13:50 to run for shelter in their clubhouse, whilst we watched the oppo struggle to pull on a very ‘wind-influenced’ sheet of tarpaulin to try and preserve their batting surface.
As the rain and lightning took over our afternoon, we had done a quick head count and realised we were a tall and short man missing, the last ball before the interruption was sent for 4 and Nick and Raj chased it into the bushes. Our cries for them couldn’t be heard over the rain and we got so concerned that we almost sent Simran out to look for them, thankfully, as the rain cleared, we saw them both run out from their hiding place, and we were whole once again. After about 45 minutes of rain, it finally began to clear and after a long and heated debate between our captain and one of their players who ‘knew the rule book off by heart’ (but couldn’t find any of his remembered rules in the rulebook) we had agreed on a 29 over game, negotiated down from an initially proposed 30 over game. Given their start of 72 runs off 12.5 overs, it was obvious that they had no intention to call the game off and wanted to make it as long as possible.
After an early tea-break, we restarted the game at 15:31 (after they came out late). We knew we had to improve, and it seemed the lightning had SPARKED that very improvement as Kavit came back out with ball in hand to finish his first over and got their opener another 4 runs. He then did quite well to take a triple wicket maiden in his third over, not too shabby Kav! His first wicket caught the opening bat out as he gave him a nice full toss which was toed straight to Nik, two balls later, a sneaky half tracker caused the exact same result and on the last ball of the over, a nice ball that bounced high off the track caught the batter on the top of his handle and @KUNAL/daddy reacted well to run forward and take the catch. Rob and Kavit complimented each other really well to completely slow their run rate and help keep the total manageable. Rob got his wicket in his final over when their no.5 lost patience and spooned a slicing ball high up to @SHAUNAK who once again took a catch not off his own bowling. Rob ended another great spell with figures of 6-1-18-1 and Kavit followed with a strong 6-1-24-3. A special congratulations to Kavit as well for managing to bowl through a dislocated shoulder after trying to throw the ball about 15 feet. Nik came on to replace Rob and managed to get his first Pinner wicket that was not against a child or a lady when he bowled out their no.6, giving him a wicket maiden in his first over. Nik bowled very consistently on a great and length and was our only bowler not to be hit for a boundary today (remember this for later), in fact, they only scored singles off him, and this left Nik with great figures of 4-1-10-1. However, the runs could have been lessened if a certain fielder had stayed in his assigned fielding position. After a few quick singles were taken to square leg, I pointed out to Simran that perhaps Raj should be at square leg, rather than midwicket, a bemused Simran looked at me as if to say what are you talking about, I put Raj at square leg, that’s where he is. He glances over and sees Raj edging closer and closer to cow corner each ball, incidentally where the shade was. Despite being completely out of position, Raj managed to use his football tekk to save some valuable boundaries, but for some reason, after picking the ball up, he took his time to get the ball in, as to which Simran came up with ‘just because you are saving the runs, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get it in’, as you can imagine, when Simran fielded the ball and held onto it for more than 2 seconds, the entire field, including the remaining opening batter, blew up in outrage for him not getting the ball into Kunal/daddy’s gloves. Shaunak was brought on at the other end to bowl the final few overs of the 29 over innings and bowled his usual speedy, accurate balls that led to getting the remaining opener out, taking the middle stump out the ground. He managed to avoid being hit for any boundaries until our skipper moved Nick from backwards square leg to regulation square leg, no points for anyone who guessed where the next ball went! Shaunak ended his spell 3-0-1-15 and this brought Sandridge’s innings to an end, achieving a total of 134-6. A special mention needs to go out to @ALAN for his incredibly acrobatic fielding, stopping everything with grace, truly rolling back the years, and also Rob’s knee for stopping a lot of drives along the floor! Don’t rub it!
After a quick turnaround, Kavit and Alan led us out to begin our chase, with Alan taking the first ball for a change, he got off the mark with a quick single and put Kavit on strike. Ball one, dot. Ball two, dot. Ball three, the scars of the last match I played were still fresh, as I clenched up in anticipation for the worst, I saw the ball race along the boundary and Kavit was off the mark in fine fashion! The pair ticked along at a good pace, which was just below the required rate, but still managed to record our best opening partnership of the season putting on 63 before the first wicket fell in the 18th over. As rain was constantly threatening, we sent multiple messages out to our non-batting umpire today of Kunal/daddy, who was stood out there for about 25 overs to tell them to up the rate in case of rain. The pair picked it up (at one point Kavit literally tried to pick the ball up as it bounced off his bat towards the stumps, luckily his ‘porous’ fielding helped him out again, as he missed the ball and it somehow did not knock the bails off as it crashed into middle stump) and began chasing our required rate before Kavit was dismissed for 35 after trying to go for a stroll to clear his head whilst the keeper was holding the ball. Stumped. In came Nik to try and speed things up, he did this in fine fashion by leading by example with his quick running between the stumps, at one point, lapping Alan on the third run. His innings was short and sweet, making a quick 8 before being caught by a stunning grab at midwicket. Still in need of upping our rate, Jamie was sent in to put both Carter’s at the crease. Alan took the role of the selfless father as he rotated strike well, bringing him to his half century, and allowing Jamie to tee off and try to clear the short boundaries. Alan was soon bowled, contributing a superb 51 runs to our chase. Next in was Nick who made a quick one (1) run before he chipped up to short fine leg and was replaced by me. After avoiding a golden duck and taking the intended leg byes on my first ball, I got off the mark with an astonishing cut shot (seriously, ridiculously good) and hit the boundary. On 132 runs, I had a slight miscalculation and as Jamie and I ran a 2, I thought that was the game won, I started walking down the pitch to go and celebrate with Jamie as I realised the fielder was getting ready to throw the ball in, I quickly made it back before rejoining Jamie at the other end as he hit the next ball for a booming 4. It wouldn’t be a Sam and Jamie partnership without at least one calamitous run out attempt. I ended the day on 7* and Jamie ended with 22* as we had chased the total with 1.4 overs to go.

Our biggest 30 points of the season so far saw us leapfrog Sandridge and put us in 2nd place, today was highlighted by the team’s mental fortitude in being able to come back in spite of our captain’s clear attempts to throw the game away in the first over. Another good batting display and a great second half in the field showed we were deserved winners today. On week 3 of ‘Did our skipper drop a catch today?’, the answer is no… BUT he dropped his usual standards and the ball twice in his first over. A big thank you to Kunal/daddy for umpiring today, to Sandridge for providing us with teas and to Raj for coming. On a serious note, we all wish @CHIVAN a speedy recovery and are very excited to welcome you back to the 2s group chat as our resident scorer! I think our match was summed up very well by Kunal/daddy in our post-match brief where we left us with the wise words of ‘It doesn’t matter how you start; it only matters how you finish, and we finished all over their…’

Sandridge 2 Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 3b 3lb 
for 6 wickets
7
135 (29.0 overs)		     
P Rottery ct  Fong B K Dixit 43
A Templeton b  Deshmukh 57
R Far ct  Fong b K Dixit 0
A Malik ct  Choksi b K Dixit 0
A Norman ct  Deshmukh b Bonneywell 8
W Rose b  Fong 0
K Murphy Not Out  12
C Miller Not Out  7
   
   
   

Pinner Cricket Club Saturday 2nd XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Simran Walia2.001500.007.50
Nick Lawrence4.002600.006.50
Jamie Carter4.001900.004.75
Rob Bonneywell6.0118118.003.00
Kavit Dixit6.012438.004.00
Nik Fong4.0110110.002.50
Shaunak Deshmukh3.0015115.005.00

Pinner Cricket Club Saturday 2nd XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 4b 3lb 
for 4 wickets
9
138		        
Kavit Dixit st  Unknown b Raza 35 5
Alan Carter b  Miller 51 5
Nik Fong ct  Unknown b Halsey 8 2
Jamie Carter Not Out  22 3
Nick Lawrence Caught  1
Sam Davies Not Out  7 1
Simran Walia  
Raj Vernekar  
Rob Bonneywell  
Kunal Choksi   1
Shaunak Deshmukh   1

Sandridge 2 Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Miller6.0126126.004.33
Malik5.2019119.003.56
Fereday6.011600.002.67
Perrin6.012500.004.17
Raza3.0028128.009.33
Halsey2.0112112.006.00