2nd XI
Matches
Sat 19 May 2018  ·  2nd XI Division 1
Roehampton Cricket Club
2nd XI
217
218/4
Sheen Park CC - 2nd XI
Catches win matches

Catches win matches

Marc Moderegger21 May 2018 - 10:14
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A frustrating day out for the 2s came to pass on Saturday, with that age old saying 'catches win matches' being as relevant as ever.

A frustrating day out for the 2s came to pass on Saturday, with that age old saying 'catches win matches' being as relevant as ever.

Having lost the toss on a gloriously warm day, RCC 2nd XI were put into bat against a team who only a few weeks before had trounced their opposition by over 300 runs. Dragging ourselves away from the delights of the Royal Wedding, and with players on both teams mentioning it would be good if one of the teams could win by 5.15pm so we could watch the FA Cup Final, Hemish and Mods strode to the crease to do what they do best, blunt the new ball.

Unfortunately both openers departed quicker than they would have liked, very quickly followed by Skipper Josh to leave us teetering on the brink at 23-3. Fortunately with RCC stalwart Sacha Hatteea at the crease we maintained hope of building a decent score to defend. Alongside new player for the 2018 season Rich Else, Sacha started to rebuild the innings. These two took the score along to 59 before Rich perished, bringing Babar to the crease. Now both Sacha and Babar enjoy hitting boundaries, however the running between the wickets style of these two players is in stark contrast. Babar's philosophy of hit and run, turn 1s into 3s etc. flies in the face of Sacha's philosophy of only taking the longest singles available. This came to a head a few overs into the partnership when Babar pushed Sacha into running a 3, leading to the inevitable (and now trademarked) Hatteea Hamstring Pullâ„¢.

With Babar getting the message that quick runs weren't the way to go, both players then went about attacking the opposition bowling, with Sacha soon passing his 50. Babar soon followed him to the landmark with an innings full of boundaries, much to the appreciation of a bumper crowd up on the heath. Sacha was the first to depart for 84, having batted for most of the 2nd half of his innings on one leg, with Babar following not long after for a well made 64 (and first RCC 50+ score), it was left to the lower order to drag the score up to 200+ which they did well, finally finishing on 217 all out, with a couple of the 45 overs unused.

After a quick tea and changeover, RCC were back out in the field knowing that we had a good score to defend but against a batting line up that had scored nearly twice this score just a couple of weeks before on a fairly decent deck and quick outfield. Ron and Zak opened the bowling and immediately asked the opening batsmen questions, with the first chance going through both keeper and slip early on. Both openers soon departed, clean bowled by Ron, who ended up bowling his full 9 overs straight through in an excellent display of line and length bowling. These early wickets brought to the crease the opposition bat who had scored 170 a few weeks prior, knowing this was the big wicket RCC attacked through the bowling of Zak, Babar, and Yasir.

The big moment came off the spin bowling of Babar, drawing the edge only to see it rebound out of the keepers (no names mentioned... [no-one will know it was you, Josh - Ed.]) gloves and onto the ground. With that the game started to slip away, both batsmen offered a few more chances of varying difficulty but by the time the in form bat was dismissed for a bludgeoning 90 by an excellent direct hit run out from Babar, the game was largely gone. Prior to that Zak Khan had picked up a well deserved wicket, clean bowling their number 3 and Jono Robinson was asking questions of both batsmen with no one (including Jono) knowing what the ball was going to do when it pitched.

However, the Sheen Park middle order saw the game home with overs and wickets to spare, leaving a very hot 11 RCC players time to ruefully pack up and think about missed opportunities, with bat, ball and in the field.

Onward to next week, another home game for the 2nd XI and an opportunity to right some wrongs and regain some of the fielding quality that had been to the fore in the first 2 games but had fatally evaded us in game 3.

Josh Wilmott

Match details

Match date

Sat 19 May 2018

Kickoff

13:00

Meet time

12:00

Instructions

Meet at the ground for 12 noon to help setup.

Any problems get in touch with Josh beforehand

Competition

2nd XI Division 1

League position

2
Sheen Park CC - 2nd XI
4
Roehampton CC - 2nd XI
Team overview
Further reading