Concorde v Putney CC

Match Report

As first games of the season go this was a good one to be involved in. Thanks to Mick for managing to prepare a wicket that played remarkably well considering the horrendous weather in the weeks preceding

Also thanks to people arriving in time to get everything ready and set up, especially as Putney arrived spectacularly early, hence the 15 minute early start to proceedings!

Onto the cricket……

Having warned everyone that I was the unluckiest coin tosser ever…….. Putney won the toss and elected to field.

The conditions were warm but overcast and Jordy Dyer and Jodi Mycroft headed out to face the new ball (one ball per game Prash!)

Jody was unlucky to be bowled by a good ball from the Putney opener, P. Hogarth, but he wouldn’t be the only victim as Hogarth returned figures of 7-34, bowling 17 overs.

Jordy played some sweeping drives and also despatched the odd full toss to, and over the boundary and looked in good nick. However we lost a few wickets in quick succession, Jordy succumbing to Hogarth on 44. Nick Freeman was unlucky to have one clip his pads before deflecting onto the stumps and Phil Hall looking comfortable before doing some plane spotting mid-shot! Hogarth also did for Edgar with a ball that seemed to stop a bit before being chipped to mid on.

At this stage we were 89-6 and needed a bit of tail wagging, luckily we had a strong batting lineup and Justin was unlucky to be caught after hitting a tracer to extra cover.

Prash Kumar showed that he can smite a ball and on his way to an entertaining 34 was well supported by Ben Westen and Luca Coleman (run your bat in!!).

It would be remiss not to mention another 0 not out from Cudders.

All out for 152 which felt about 20 too few.

Putney took a liquid tea and upon taking to the pitch again their openers set off to a decent start before Ben Westen took the opening scalp of the season with the score at 23. At the other end Prash was bowling with pace and accuracy and his first Concorde wicket came courtesy of a well held catch by Nick Freeman.

Putney were despatching anything loose to the boundary, John W eked out an LBW (plumb from where I was standing!) but at 76-3 and with plenty of time left Putney looked favourites.

Our bowling and fielding needed to be tight to have any chance of a victory and things started to happen. Nick F produced a great bit of fielding to run out the Putney number 5.

Cudders then produced a spell of bowling, in tandem with Prash’s second spell which turned the tide. Cudders took 2 wickets and kept runs to a minimum whilst Prash took a further 3 at the other end. Between them they took 6 wickets and went for only 24 runs.

At 113-9 we now looked like favourites but the last pair started swinging and connecting and the final wicket saw Putney short by just 13 runs.

The fielding was excellent, no catches dropped (Cudders………) and a thoroughly enjoyable first outing.

PS From Ian Cudwortth

Good match report mate, I particularly liked the third paragraph from the bottom ‘bigging up’ the spells of Prash & myself😂. Maybe it was something to do with us attending all those cold January Sunday morning indoor nets at 9am !!!

I notice you modestly forgot to mention the polished 22 you made alongside Jordy to get us going again after losing a wicket in the second over of the match and your own bowling effort including the vital last wicket when it looked as it their last pair might just ‘pull it out of the bag’!