Stu's Six Saves Cavs

Cricket is a game for individuals that is played in teams. Or something like that.

A great game of cricket for the Cavaliers on Sunday 28 April saw RCC need 6 runs to win with two balls remaining. Barnes Common CC needed one wicket to win, having seemed dead and buried before the traditional RCC Sunday collapse. To everyone's surprise, including his own, Stuart Allen knocked the penultimate ball of the match over square leg for 6 to claim a memorable one wicket win for RCC.

Your correspondent was very fortunate that a strong team effort put him in a position to take all the glory and remind everyone how much of a club man he really is. Some long standing RCC members joined with several debutants to take on Barnes Common, and what was really pleasing was the way we stayed in the game when it could have got away from us, and that we were more or less able to stick to our bowling and batting plans.

Debutant Dhilhan Hannan was the outstanding bowler, taking 4-16 from 7 overs, ably supported by Harry Purnell, Hugh Gerlach and Stephen Broad, each of whom took 2 wickets. The fielding was a real team effort, with Ed Faldo, also making his debut, keeping busy in the offside ring.

Imran Hussain looked likely to do some damage opening the batting before a mis-timed shot brought his first RCC innings to an end, but this allowed fellow debutant Henry Desch to score an excellent 47, ably supported in a great partnership by Harry Purnell who made 43. This partnership broke the back of the chase, and some contributions from the rest of the team saw the Cavaliers squeeze home.

Barnes Common CC 156 all out. Roehampton CC Cavaliers 157-9 from 34.5 overs. Toss won by RCC.

(scorecard can be found here)