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Yes you’ve have read correctly….the 5s Win by Alex Doey
Lance Sharrock18 Jun 2022 - 09:12
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No need to beat around the bush on this one, the 5s have banked their first (and long overdue I might add) “W” of the season. And to put the proverbial cherry on top we broke the slump by getting one over the old enemy Putney CC!....(to be fair I say old enemy they were actually a really good bunch of lads but we’ll gloss over that as it’s not really in line with the narrative I’m trying to push).
In true club cricket style we obviously took to the field bowling first (having lost the toss…truly bizarre call from Putney there) with only 10 players (a certain newly enrolled Barbadian had some issues finding the ground and ended up taking the field about 30 mins in to the game). We opened up with our tried and tested “Double A” attack of Ali and Aadil both bowling some very tidy right-arm seam-up. It only took one over from Ali bowling to realise that there were demons all over this dirt-track of a wicket, there were short to good length deliveries barely reaching a hairs breadth above the ground mixed in with good-to full length delivery shooting off to space. Definitely a bowl first wicket this one.
It was only the second over before Aadil took the first scalp of the day, bowled straight, kept low, bails fly, see you later. By the end of the “Double A” opening spell we had them 54-3 after 12 overs, with Ali (1-24) trapping the batsmen no.3 LBW and Aadil (2-30) picking up his 2nd wicket with a carbon copy of his first by snaffling up the other opener. Next in came the skip Lance “Hungry for Wickets” Sharrock and Tom, this partnership brought round a very different pace to proceedings.
Once again the Roehampton bowling tandem gave the Putney batsmen no respite at all with another 3 wickets falling during Lance and Tom’s 12 over spell. Lance in particular had the oppo seeing ghosts as they simply couldn’t handle the deathly accurate full-dippy medium pacers that were being fired their way. His two wickets coming LBW and bowled respectively, finishing his 6 overs with 2-19 including 2 maidens. Tom finished with 1-24, his ripping leggies eventually resulting in one of the highlights of the day as the batsmen fiddled the blade through the corridor as the ball ripped off the edge and into the diving hands of Devesh at slip- proper cricket wicket that one (this won’t be first the first handy catch taken by the specialist fielder today). Putney 4s are at this point 100-6 after 24 overs.
Myself and the slightly tardy Barbadian (Dennis) came in as what came to be the final bowling change. As we came into bowl the two batsmen in Cornick and Brown (yes I also they sound like a law firm) were starting to form a slightly worrying partnership as they started to demonstrate the consistent strike rotation and sporadic boundary required on this wicket. Dennis was the man to break the 43 run partnership with Cornick holing out for a handy 26 (127-7).
Now they were 7 down batsmen Brown was starting to find the boundaries a tad too regularly, until the strangle-hold of my tight offies finally got the better of him….or so I thought. Alas dropped in the deep….he lives another day. Luckily it didn’t last too much longer as he was caught next over off Dennis’s handy pace deliveries, funnily enough caught by the same fielder who dropped off me….I’m not bitter. Brown was out for 38 (thankfully), the innings was then swept up in double quick fashion by yours truly after this. The next over batsmen no.9 tried to heave to cow corner but ended up massively top edging it over the keepers head, thankfully Devs swept up behind him taking a blinding diving one-handed catch to get my first of the day. And then the next ball no.11 dances down completely misses it and Mark dutifully obliges with an easy stumping. Dennis finishes 2-26 off his 5, myself with 2-23 of my 5.5 and most importantly Putney all out 149 in 34.5 overs. The Deers with a nice round 150 to chase in 40 overs. However it was now our turn to be subjected to all the natural variations this pitch had to offer.
I won’t lie we made this look a lot harder than it should have been. I blinked and we were 10-2 after 4 overs, the Putney opening pair were enjoying the wicket as much as our opening bowlers did. Rory sadly nicked behind on 2 to a very spicy delivery (no shame there) due a lack of top order batsmen available Aadil put his hand up to give batting at 3 a go. He certainly was there for a good time and not a long time, hits 4 first ball and then bowled next ball. Big shout out to Jean-Marc who came in at 4 playing in his first ever game of organised cricket, hopefully the overall day out and result will overshadow the two-ball duck. At this point we were teetering at 17-3, I must note whilst all this carnage was going around Mark Boag our wicket-keeper star opening stick was starting to get settled on this variable pitch. Ben came in next and dug in really hard for 20 balls, and acted as a useful foil to allow Mark to carry on playing his shots. Sadly like a few of the Putney boys Ben got a criminally low one off a short pitched delivery, I think many of us would been bowled off that filth. Lance was next man in as Roehampton were 34-4 after 11.3 overs (Mark 23*). Once again the ask was for somebody to stick around as Mark was starting to show if you give yourself time there were runs to be had. Again another workman like innings was starting to be built by Lance until a somewhat questionable LBW decision sent Lance packing on 2 off 20 ball.
I then come in at 60-5 (Mark 43*) off 18.2 overs. The plan was simple, dig in, bat long and see what happens. A few 1s and 2s later Mark’s 50 came up, a hell of an effort considering the wickets tumbling around him. After that Mark really started to free up, whenever there was a bad ball Mark was on it like a flash with my personal highlight seeing Mark smack one straight back over the bowlers head for 6. I did my best to facilitate the run machine as best I could, I would either knock 1s around to get Mark on strike or simply chew up a whole over to survive. And before I knew it 10 overs had past and I even found myself hitting my first boundary through the covers. I won’t lie the partnership wasn’t without it’s scary moments. Myself and Mark used a couple lives between us, early in my innings the keeper dropped a very fine nick from myself and Mark got dropped by the oppo captain off his own bowling. Sadly after 17.2 overs our 78 run partnership had to come to an end, I got bowled after an inside edge onto the stumps (another one keeping criminally low), my innings ending on 17 off 47. At this point we were 138-6 (Mark 92*), with Tom coming in to try and see the end of the innings with Mark….would we see a maiden century for Mark? Unfortunately extras had other ideas and only an over or so later a very wide delivery resulted in 5 wides and that was the inaugural 2022 win for the 5s!!
Real shame Mark wasn’t given the opportunity at the end of the innings to reach the hundred but we have to owe the win to his incredible 93* of 120 balls. It was a joy to watch the majority of it from the other end. All in all it was a fantastic and all-round performance in the field and with the ball, with all bowlers contributing. Going forward let’s hope Mark’s batting performance rubs off on the rest of us for the upcoming weeks.
In true club cricket style we obviously took to the field bowling first (having lost the toss…truly bizarre call from Putney there) with only 10 players (a certain newly enrolled Barbadian had some issues finding the ground and ended up taking the field about 30 mins in to the game). We opened up with our tried and tested “Double A” attack of Ali and Aadil both bowling some very tidy right-arm seam-up. It only took one over from Ali bowling to realise that there were demons all over this dirt-track of a wicket, there were short to good length deliveries barely reaching a hairs breadth above the ground mixed in with good-to full length delivery shooting off to space. Definitely a bowl first wicket this one.
It was only the second over before Aadil took the first scalp of the day, bowled straight, kept low, bails fly, see you later. By the end of the “Double A” opening spell we had them 54-3 after 12 overs, with Ali (1-24) trapping the batsmen no.3 LBW and Aadil (2-30) picking up his 2nd wicket with a carbon copy of his first by snaffling up the other opener. Next in came the skip Lance “Hungry for Wickets” Sharrock and Tom, this partnership brought round a very different pace to proceedings.
Once again the Roehampton bowling tandem gave the Putney batsmen no respite at all with another 3 wickets falling during Lance and Tom’s 12 over spell. Lance in particular had the oppo seeing ghosts as they simply couldn’t handle the deathly accurate full-dippy medium pacers that were being fired their way. His two wickets coming LBW and bowled respectively, finishing his 6 overs with 2-19 including 2 maidens. Tom finished with 1-24, his ripping leggies eventually resulting in one of the highlights of the day as the batsmen fiddled the blade through the corridor as the ball ripped off the edge and into the diving hands of Devesh at slip- proper cricket wicket that one (this won’t be first the first handy catch taken by the specialist fielder today). Putney 4s are at this point 100-6 after 24 overs.
Myself and the slightly tardy Barbadian (Dennis) came in as what came to be the final bowling change. As we came into bowl the two batsmen in Cornick and Brown (yes I also they sound like a law firm) were starting to form a slightly worrying partnership as they started to demonstrate the consistent strike rotation and sporadic boundary required on this wicket. Dennis was the man to break the 43 run partnership with Cornick holing out for a handy 26 (127-7).
Now they were 7 down batsmen Brown was starting to find the boundaries a tad too regularly, until the strangle-hold of my tight offies finally got the better of him….or so I thought. Alas dropped in the deep….he lives another day. Luckily it didn’t last too much longer as he was caught next over off Dennis’s handy pace deliveries, funnily enough caught by the same fielder who dropped off me….I’m not bitter. Brown was out for 38 (thankfully), the innings was then swept up in double quick fashion by yours truly after this. The next over batsmen no.9 tried to heave to cow corner but ended up massively top edging it over the keepers head, thankfully Devs swept up behind him taking a blinding diving one-handed catch to get my first of the day. And then the next ball no.11 dances down completely misses it and Mark dutifully obliges with an easy stumping. Dennis finishes 2-26 off his 5, myself with 2-23 of my 5.5 and most importantly Putney all out 149 in 34.5 overs. The Deers with a nice round 150 to chase in 40 overs. However it was now our turn to be subjected to all the natural variations this pitch had to offer.
I won’t lie we made this look a lot harder than it should have been. I blinked and we were 10-2 after 4 overs, the Putney opening pair were enjoying the wicket as much as our opening bowlers did. Rory sadly nicked behind on 2 to a very spicy delivery (no shame there) due a lack of top order batsmen available Aadil put his hand up to give batting at 3 a go. He certainly was there for a good time and not a long time, hits 4 first ball and then bowled next ball. Big shout out to Jean-Marc who came in at 4 playing in his first ever game of organised cricket, hopefully the overall day out and result will overshadow the two-ball duck. At this point we were teetering at 17-3, I must note whilst all this carnage was going around Mark Boag our wicket-keeper star opening stick was starting to get settled on this variable pitch. Ben came in next and dug in really hard for 20 balls, and acted as a useful foil to allow Mark to carry on playing his shots. Sadly like a few of the Putney boys Ben got a criminally low one off a short pitched delivery, I think many of us would been bowled off that filth. Lance was next man in as Roehampton were 34-4 after 11.3 overs (Mark 23*). Once again the ask was for somebody to stick around as Mark was starting to show if you give yourself time there were runs to be had. Again another workman like innings was starting to be built by Lance until a somewhat questionable LBW decision sent Lance packing on 2 off 20 ball.
I then come in at 60-5 (Mark 43*) off 18.2 overs. The plan was simple, dig in, bat long and see what happens. A few 1s and 2s later Mark’s 50 came up, a hell of an effort considering the wickets tumbling around him. After that Mark really started to free up, whenever there was a bad ball Mark was on it like a flash with my personal highlight seeing Mark smack one straight back over the bowlers head for 6. I did my best to facilitate the run machine as best I could, I would either knock 1s around to get Mark on strike or simply chew up a whole over to survive. And before I knew it 10 overs had past and I even found myself hitting my first boundary through the covers. I won’t lie the partnership wasn’t without it’s scary moments. Myself and Mark used a couple lives between us, early in my innings the keeper dropped a very fine nick from myself and Mark got dropped by the oppo captain off his own bowling. Sadly after 17.2 overs our 78 run partnership had to come to an end, I got bowled after an inside edge onto the stumps (another one keeping criminally low), my innings ending on 17 off 47. At this point we were 138-6 (Mark 92*), with Tom coming in to try and see the end of the innings with Mark….would we see a maiden century for Mark? Unfortunately extras had other ideas and only an over or so later a very wide delivery resulted in 5 wides and that was the inaugural 2022 win for the 5s!!
Real shame Mark wasn’t given the opportunity at the end of the innings to reach the hundred but we have to owe the win to his incredible 93* of 120 balls. It was a joy to watch the majority of it from the other end. All in all it was a fantastic and all-round performance in the field and with the ball, with all bowlers contributing. Going forward let’s hope Mark’s batting performance rubs off on the rest of us for the upcoming weeks.
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