St John’s Vs Venturers, Sunday June 22th

Venturers 198/8 (35), St John’s 157/10 (33.5)

Play-Cricket Results

Bruce set off like a train. Unfortunately the train he set off like was the 08:50 to Gloucester, so he was a bit late starting and slowed down inexplicably, and never quite reached his final destination. Zuber failed to get a single and Gregory, who has a defence but no shots, played out a maiden in the last over, leaving us just short of 200 after all.

It was plenty. We were in a healthy position already, thanks to an opening partnership of 80 between Ritvij and Jaideep, whose innings ended only because his back trouble recurred, and useful contributions from Krish, Zuber and Matt. We had all been a bit late starting, despite a message in the morning moving the start time forward half an hour, because nobody could find the stumps: then, after one over in which Jaideep hit two fours, there was a sharp shower. After that the wet ball became hard to control and we benefited from a few that swung unexpectedly wide, but the bowling was otherwise good. Jaideep and Ritvij played it well and accumulated, but run rate began to be a slight concern later and Ritvij eventually tried something extravagant against the slow left-arm (bowled by a cricket coach who also brought few young ringers for St John’s), and missed. Krish contributed a rapid 22 out of a partnership of 28, ended by a pinpoint left-arm-round yorker. Vijay picked up a full toss from the otherwise accurate youngster at the other end and his it very hard to the left of the coach at short midwicket, who caught it casually. Jaideep moved calmly on to fifty but retired hurt soon after. Charlie also got a yorker, and somehow managed to get the flap of his right pad to it, thus being leg before even though no part of the leg in question was in front of the stumps. But by then we were doing well, because Matt had been scoring steadily alongside Jaideep. They tried some rather occasional bowlers, and Matt and later Joji got out to one of them: at the other end, Ajeet, whom we had lent to them, bowled well but didn’t get the figures to sho w it. He bowled Imran, though, and stopped us running away.

We had also lent them Hemendra and he proved to be the main threat when they batted. The coach opened with him and they had relatively little trouble against Imran and Zuber: on the other hand, they did not get much above four an over, against an asking rate of five and a half. A large crowd gathered at this point, but not to watch us. On the contrary, they lined up on the boundary with their backs to the cricket and listened to shouted orders about tent pegs. We felt that this was not safe, and went over to explain the danger. One of the commanders detailed himself to watch the cricket, and a few balls later the coach duly hit a pull in their general direction. He yelled at his charges, telling them how unaware they were, which seemed a little unfair, as he hadn’t been aware himself until we alerted him. By now Vijay and Ritvij were bowling, and Vijay told Imran that he thought spin might be more effective. They tried some: Vijay could do it but Ritvij, who used to do it, seemed out of practice and couldn’t. This reminded Imran that he had a specialist spinner in the team, but before that, Vijay induced a drive and an edge from the coach, well caught by Jaideep. Hemendra, who had been comfortable against Ritvij’s flattish spin and could get them close if he could keep going, found Gregory’s flight utterly confusing. His partner was only slightly less confused and they both lofted catches down the ground. Joji and Matt, who had been carefully put at the correct distance by Zuber (keeping wicket by now) caught them, though neither was at all easy. Matt’s catch, on the run at long-off, was especially competent. Gregory deprived himself of a hat-trick by floating the next ball through the new batsman’s massive wipe but then spinning it just past leg stump, but after that there was no more threat to us. Joji worked through the lower middle order, helped by Charlie who caught a third good boundary catch; and Bruce demolished the tail, not helped by Krish who dropped a simple catch but managed a run-out instead.