Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club

Scorecard

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club League 1st XI v Wanderers on Sat 22 Apr 2017 at 1:00 pm
Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club Won by 7 wickets

Match report Shak Shocked as Crows Crush Wayward Wanderers in Season Starter

With newly-installed first team skipper Nick Outram unfortunately unable to play, and a number of other first team regulars unavailable, the Crows were unsure what to expect against a Wanderers side that had handed them a resounding defeat in last season’s opening fixture. Nick was there to lead the team in a proper fielding practice before the game though, and with his direction and words of encouragement still running through the players’ minds the Crows stepped out to bowl first, led by stand-in skipper Jeff Cluett.

The early plan was to keep a tight reign on the scoring rate and frustrate the often-extravagant shot-makers in the Wanderers’ batting line up, and Jaffa turned to Sinith and Dan F to execute it. Both bowlers stuck to their task perfectly, with a miserly opening spell full of control and significant lateral movement. Sporting a bizarre grey shirt, it was “The Earl” Sinith who made the initial breakthroughs, dismissing both openers for 6 apiece courtesy of Naga’s first catch for his new club, and Mike Brundish’s first pouch with his new gloves. “The Hurricane” wasn’t to be outdone though, as he had the Wanderers’ number 4 caught at square leg by Bainesy for 8, then baffled the number 5 with a beautiful in-ducker, clean bowling the bemused batsman for a second ball duck.

With the score at 34-4 after 12, the skipper tasked himself and Razz with turning the screw. Razz was the first to duly oblige, claiming the 5th wicket via another safe-as-houses snaffle at cover by Doug, and bringing Wanderers’ main man Shak to the crease. He was in his usual confident mood, skipping down the track to Jaffa’s first ball at him in an attempt to unsettle his erstwhile teammate. The play and miss that resulted however just served to encourage the bowler, as he quickly claimed the prize scalp a few deliveries later. An inspired Baines was again the man to step up in the field, taking a superb catch off a firm strike with the ball behind him. Drinks were then taken, and at 57-6 this looked to have been the decisive blow.

The Wanderers’ race wasn’t quite run though, as the day’s standout batsman was still at the crease. Lefty number 3 Ansar was that man, and after an initially watchful start he began to counter-attack as he feared he was quickly running out of partners. At this stage it was Dougie and Bainsey who were brought on to close out the innings, but both were faced with some lusty blows from Ansar in their first couple of overs that threatened to reverse some of the winning momentum the Crows had created. Baines had a reply of his own though, striking with a beautifully flighted ball that rocked back the number 8’s leg stump.

Ansar stepped up his pace in response, firing his way past his own 50 and then the team’s 100. Soon he was again to see a partner trudging back to the pavilion however, as Ravi, another of Wanderers’ Crows’ boys, was sent on his way by Doug “The Prince” Charman with yet another clean bowled. Wanderers were fielding 10 players on the day, so Crows only needed 1 more wicket at this point of 100-8 to wrap things up. Who else but Bainsey to deliver the final blow, completing a dream day for himself and the Crows. Naga claimed his second catch of the day at mid off, giving Baines his second scalp, as Ansar’s lone hand finally finished for an outstanding 70.

So it was chasing 105 that “Deadly” Dave Shaw and “Wham, Bam, Thank you Dan” Cartledge strode out to begin the Crows’ innings. Whoever had “clean bowled for a duck” in Dave Bingo will be pleased to know that this was the unfortunate result for Mr. Shaw, inside edging a Mudasar delivery onto his stumps. Vice Captain Mikey Brundish was to come and go shortly afterwards, gifting Mudasar his second scalp by slapping a full toss directly to mid wicket. At the other end, DC was battling away with a mixture of the luscious and the lucky, crisply striking straight drives one minute, and sending the ball off the back of his bat, looping in the air into a gap the next. For Wanderers, Ravi can consider himself unfortunate after a quality opening burst somehow gave him no return for his efforts. At 34-2 though, with Barrymore and DC struggling to hold off the Wanderers’ probing bowling, there was certainly a game on.

The tide then seemed to be turning even further, as DC stroked the ball directly to cover and called Barrymore though for a suicide single, leaving him well short of his ground and the score 54-3. Next to stride out was debutant Naga, who settled the nerves of onlooking Crows players and fans with a calm display of hitting that left the earlier run out a distant memory and the result a foregone conclusion. In fact these two were to quickly bring it home for their side, in particular hammering the Wanderers’ two spinners for some brutal boundaries. One such blow brought about the conclusion of the affair, with Naga unbeaten on 17 and DC agonisingly short of a maiden half century of the season on 48 not out.

A quality all-round performance with everyone contributing, the Crows will be well-pleased with their opening game of the season. Proud stand-in skipper Cluett told us at the presentation that “it was the fielding that made the real difference”, adding that “if we catch this well all season, even Syko might have nothing to grumble about”. Any number of players could have rightly thought they would pick up the man of the match cheque, however it was to Baines that it went for his crucial catching and his 2 wickets.

Bring on S*******t next week!

Captain: J Cluett
Keeper: M Brundish
Debut: Nagaraja Bommanapalli
Ducks: D. Shaw
Catches: Baines 2, Bommanapalli 2, Charman, Brundish
Grey Shirts: Chandran (1)

Wanderers Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 7w  
for 9 wickets
9
104 (28.0 overs)		     
Mudasar ct  Bommanapalli b.Sinith 6
Tayeb ct  Brundish b. Sinith 6
Ansar ct  Bommanapalli b. Baines 70
Riaz ct  Baines b. Finucane 8
Aftab b  Finucane 0
Iyaz ct  Charman b. Shaik 0
MS Arshad ct  Baines b. J Cluett 3
Rajib b  Baines 0
Ravi b  Charman 2
Hamid Not Out  0
Mehboob  

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club League 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Sinith Chandran6.011929.503.17
Dan Finucane6.011527.502.50
Jeff Cluett4.0016116.004.00
Razavullah Shaik4.0016116.004.00
Andrew Baines5.0024212.004.80
Doug Charman4.0121121.005.25

Crowthorne & Crown Wood Cricket Club League 1st XI Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
6nb 6w 13b  
for 3 wickets
25
108		        
Dan Cartledge Not Out  48
David Shaw b  Mudasar 0
Mike Brundish ct  Mudasar 7 1
Chris Allwright Run out  11
Nagaraja Bommanapalli Not Out  17 2
Razavullah Shaik  
Doug Charman   1
Dan Finucane  
Jeff Cluett  
Andrew Baines   2
Sinith Chandran  

Wanderers Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Ravi4.01800.002.00
Mudasar4.0126213.006.50
Riaz4.002000.005.00
Ansar3.001700.005.67
Unsure2.00800.004.00
Habeeb1.001400.0014.00