Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club

Scorecard

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Crowthorne Saturday 1st XI v West Reading 2 on Sat 01 Jun 2013 at 1:30
Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Won by 8 wickets

Match report Arshad and Avrili put West Reading to the Sword as Crow canter to victory

Lord’s. The MCG. Eden Gardens. The Wanderers. Sabina Park. All special venues that stir thoughts of victories past, that recall memories of legendary cricketing greats, that excite a new wave of players and fans every season. There is one glaring omission from this venerated list though; the New Ground of Wellington College.


The season may already be 4 matches deep but it is only as they step onto the hallowed turf of New Ground for the first time that the mighty Crows feel it has truly started; finally a venue to equal both their ambition and their ability. As boundary flags are meticulously placed, gazebos confusedly erected and pre-match banter confidently exchanged it once again falls to skipper Knight to begin proceedings. In what should have been an ominous warning sign for West Reading their captain choses poorly as the tossed coin spins end over end towards the impressive wicket, granting Knight his wish of bowling first. The stage is set, the two unbeaten titans of BCL Division 2 are ready and the sun is out; game on.


Once again the new ball sees its way into the hands of J Cluett and M Chalmers, both bowlers well aware of the attacking threat posed by a West Reading batting line up full of shots, if not sense. What follows is a display of swing, seam and swagger as great as the occasion demands, the opening pair showing exactly how to counter aggressive batsmanship- with precision, movement and patience. In what seems to be no time the first four wickets tumble as both bowlers grab a couple of scalps, and combined with bowling as tight and miserly as their Club Treasurer they render their supposed nearest challengers in the league 55-4 at drinks. Even this fantastic return could have been better as both bowlers endure countless slices of bad luck with an ungodly amount of plays and misses and, unfortunately, a few dropped catches. Ironically the hardest chance of all is the one that “T-Unit” Terry Charles snaffles off his bootstraps at mid off to hand Cluett his second.


Buoyed by surviving the openers’ onslaught, the two West Reading batsmen left at the crease see the bowling changes as an opportunity to counter-attack and begin to find the middle of their bats with some hefty thwacks. This is the time when spin-king Partridge is invariably Knight’s go to man and he does not disappoint, snuffing out a promising innings from the left-handed number six with a straight ball that keeps low, the subsequent death rattle echoing around the New Ground coliseum to the delight of the Crows fielders and the despair of the disbelieving batsman, and perhaps more importantly he adds to this by finally dismissing the troublesome opener for a very hard fought and a very, very fortunate 25. At the other end after Outram, on his New Ground league debut, feels the brunt of the opposition’s counter-offensive, it falls to “T-Bone” Terry Charles to tighten things back up which he duly does, rewarded with a wicket of his own. With West Reading now seven down for 115 it appears to be all she wrote, but like an inconvenient genital rash they refuse to go away, battling back with an impressive, if at times unconventional, 8th wicket stand of around 50 to close their 45 overs on 164-7.


Well aware that this score is probably 100 runs short of par on the best batting track in the league the Crows tuck into the best tea in the league (which offers even more variety than the Crows’ bowling attack) with relieved smiles, questionable chat and the confident air of champions-elect. The unenlightened may doubt the league-leaders’ strong self-belief when facing what on paper could look like a tricky total to chase, but they certainly do not after just five overs of the Crows’ innings…


And the reason for this? You can keep your Langer and Hayden, your Cook and Strauss, or your Sehwag and Gambir, there is a new opening partnership in town that threatens to blow anything that’s come before out of the water. After just 5 overs A Cluett and S Arshad propel the Crows to an astonishingly quick fifty, once again setting the platform as they have every match so far. This clearly shell-shocks the opposition, with many of their fielders displaying the dazed look of a squadron that just finished a tour in Vietnam, and the only ones with any signs of life showing nothing but frustration with the batsmen, with themselves and more hilariously with each other.


In a rare slip at 66-0 Cluett misses a straight one that keeps a touch low to unleash the in-form W Avrili on the opposition and inevitably another 50 partnership follows, the only surprise being that the disillusioned, disgruntled and disappointing West Reading manage to break it before the required total is reached. As if he knows the job is all but done Arshad holes out to mid-wicket for a commanding 62, the first 50 containing fully 11 bludgeoned boundaries. Smokin’ Joe is the new bat, and the match referee will be looking into his contribution as it looks very much like he has money on Avrili to finish top scorer, pushing round singles uncharacteristically, playing second fiddle to the imperious lefty and allowing him to unveil his full array of nudges, nurdles, tickles and chips as he brings up his maiden 50 of the season. All that remains is for Avrili to really open up and smash the final nail in the coffin, first hitting the biggest 6 of his life (an enormous 5 or 6 paces beyond the boundary) to bring the scores level, then clipping a trademark push through midwicket for 4 to take the win and the high score, finishing on a classy 63 not out and securing the 5th win out of 5 for the red-hot Crowthorne.


There was a team that dared to dream, that had the courage to believe, and that had the skill to succeed; Crowthorne, we salute you.

West Reading 2 Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
6w 9b 5lb 
for 7 wickets
20
164 (45.0 overs)		     
Arif Hussain b  J Cluett 14 24 3 58.33
Adnan Raja b  Partridge 29 93 3 31.18
Taskeen Ahmed ct  Charles b. J Cluett 0 2 0
Usman Ali ct  Barron b. M Chalmers 0 6 0
Waseem Ameen b  M Chalmers 2 9 22.22
Mubin Ahmed b  Partridge 41 54 8 75.93
Jabraan Ahmed b  Charles 2 9 22.22
Faisal Aslam Not Out  17 23 3 73.91
Muhammad Taimoor Yousaf   32 5 1 0
Hizar Hayat  
   

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Crowthorne Saturday 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Jeff Cluett12.0328214.002.33
Michael Chalmers11.0325212.502.27
Dan Partridge11.0147223.504.27
Nick Outram4.002800.007.00
Terry Charles5.02515.001.00
Muhammad Shakeel Arshad2.001700.008.50

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Crowthorne Saturday 1st XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
6w 4b 3lb 
for 2 wickets
13
168		        
Anthony Cluett b  MT Yousaf 22 4
Muhammad Shakeel Arshad ct  A Raja M Ahmed 62 12
Will Avrili Not Out  63 10 1
Joe Davies Not Out  8 1
Nick Outram  
Richard Barron   1
Jeff Cluett  
Mark Knight  
Terry Charles   1
Michael Chalmers  
Dan Partridge  

West Reading 2 Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
H Hayat3.002900.009.67
MT Yousaf8.0049149.006.12
M Ahmed10.0148148.004.80
J Ahmed5.312800.005.09
F Aslam1.00700.007.00

  • Umpire :
    Alan Brown
  • Scorer :