Concorde v Fleet Street Strollers

Match Report

ANOTHER TIGHT DRAW AS BOTH SIDES TRIED TO MAKE ‘THE HEADLINES’ !

Last Sunday we enjoyed a lovely sunny day to welcome our friends from Fleet Street, laced with their usual cluster of Kiwi players. We nearly had to cancel with a very long list of absentees and on Wednesday night with just 7 players and no great quality, I nearly had to ‘throw in the towel’ but fortunately I received a late e-mail from Nas Haider, captain of last week’s opponents Kensington and Chelsea, confirming that he and two other good players Sadiq Hashmi and Zain Rizvi could all guest for us as they were highly oversubscribed for their fixture. It was like the ‘cavalry riding to the rescue’ in a western movie!

In Jerry’s absence, on winning the toss, I invited Fleet Street to bat first. We opened with a very good opening attack of Matt Hallam and Sadiq, who both bowled very well with no luck at all against two very competent openers. Matt bowled with great accuracy with a nagging length and bit of swing, whilst Sadiq was very hostile and accurate from the Mansion end, very economical but a few edges didn’t go to hand. These two gave way to what I thought was an ideal combination of Zain’s off spin and Edgar’s leg spin but on the day Edgar struggled to find his length and anything short or over-pitched was ruthlessly put away and the score mounted to 89 until Zain dismissed the solid opener for 48, courtesy of a very sharp catch at extra cover by James Aston off a full blooded drive. Soon afterwards, the tall left handed opener also succumbed to Zain, bowled off the inside edge for 45, going back instead of forward to a floated off spinner, 110-2! The visiting skipper joined the hard hitting no.3 and the score soon mounted to 156 before Zain took a good return catch to send him back for 12. By now I felt we had to stem the runs so I brought back Sadiq from the pavilion end which immediately put on the ‘brakes’ and we clawed ourselves back into the game. The writer replaced Zain and in my first over an attempt at a quick single to extra cover was thwarted by James moving quickly to his right to pick up and throw down the stumps at the bowlers end to dismiss the hard hitting no.3 for 48, and in my next over Nick Freeman pulled off a smart leg side stumping to dismiss the new left handed batsman to make it 178-5.

The Strollers began to ‘throw the bat’ to good effect until the no.7 after a quick fire 42 chipped a ‘dolly’ catch to extra cover, where James surprisingly dropped it but instantly made amends but throwing down the stumps to run out the batsman before he could enjoy the reprieve of being dropped.214-6, and it soon became 214-7 as Matt Stockbridge replaced the writer at the mansion end and bowled the no.8, second ball. 10-15 mins further slogging pushed up the score to 234-7 before Glen Oliver declared the innings. Zain returned the best figures of 3-43 but a special mention to Sadiq who bowled beautifully and very fast for 13 overs for just 44 runs (mostly off the edge) without reward. It was the best ‘0 for’ I have seen in a long time.

We started our reply with Nas and Edgar but immediately had a setback as Ed was clean. bowled second delivery by a good ball to end a miserable day for him , but undeterred Nas and Sadiq took up the challenge. We then saw some brilliant controlled hitting with Nas racing to his 50 off just 22 balls with 2 singles, 11 x 4’s, and 1 x 6 which brought up his second half century on this ground in a week. It must be a club record for the fastest fifty in his first appearance for us! What an incredibly positive cricketer he is – a nightmare to bowl to and it has to be a very, very good ball to achieve even a ‘dot ball’ against him. Sadiq was also enjoying himself with a six and two fours before falling for 18, bowled by the opening bowler whilst trying to hit a straight one over mid wicket to reduce us to 87-2. Then we suffered a real setback next over when Nas tried to smash the veteran Fleet Street ‘pie chucker’ down the ground but was caught on the fence at long on for 62 off 29 balls.

James Aston and Nick Freeman tried to rebuild things but after three boundaries Nick also mistimed a lofted drive and was caught for 12 to make it 103-4. Zain joined James and a very good little partnership developed until with the score at 150, Zain was adjudged lbw for 14. Matt Stockbridge came in looked very comfortable for 10-15 mins but then uncharacteristically played ‘all around’ a straight one to be bowled for 7, to be replaced by Matt Hallam. With James and Matt together we thought we still had a chance of winning but in the next over James was caught for 47, far and away his best knock for us this year, and suddenly 235 looked a long way off. Pat Wells made 7, then Nigel (5 n.o.) supported Matt to the end who finished on 28 n.o. his 4th n.o. in five innings this season, but we finished an agonising 11 runs short, with the writer once again not needed with the willow!

A thoroughly good game against a good batting side which ended in a fair result!