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Match Summary: vs. Clapham Nomads, Sunday, 16 Sep 2007

Ground: Nursery Road
Captain: Andrew Wingfield
Match type: Timed
Toss: Exiles elected to bat
Weather: Cloudy
Opposition: Clapham Nomads scored: 131 for 5 (35 overs)
Exiles Score: 167 all out (36 overs)
Result: Match Drawn
Man of the match: Keith Roberts 67 runs

charts of Exiles wicket partnerships for this match
Score board
 Batsmen RunsBalls4s6s
Keith Roberts ct. 67  106 
Quentin Davies b. 
Mark Bradshaw b. 35  52 
Amil Patel (W)b. 31  26 
John Tither ct. 
Owen Draper b. 
Chris White ct. 
Adam Uttley run out 
Andrew Wingfield (C)st. 
10 Jeff Hilson not out 
11 Naren Patel ct. 
  Extra(s)  10w 5b 6lb   21      
    167  216   
Bowling
 BowlerOMRWAvg
Andrew Wingfield  8.0 16 16
Jeff Hilson  5.0 14 0
John Tither  5.0 17 0
Adam Uttley  8.0 33 33
Naren Patel  7.0 1.7
Chris White  2.0 20 0
Wicket Keeping and Fielding
PlayerCatchRun OutStumpingPenalty
Quentin Davies    
Amil Patel (W)   
Chris White    

We travelled to Raynes Park to play the Clapham Nomads in our final competitive fixture of the season. The weather was good and hopes were high of concluding the season with a win. We were strengthened by the inclusion of two of Andy's team-mates from Old Merchant Taylors, Adam Uttley and Chris White. It has been a real struggle to get a full team out for most matches this year, so perhaps it is time to look at a further recruitment drive, though I accept that we will of course have to be careful not to upset long-serving Exiles and that we must safeguard the hallowed club ethos, which I believe was first invented 15 years ago by someone who wasn't very good and no longer plays for us.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we started the match about half an hour late. Sadly, the Nomads were missing two of their regulars; Benny Chance had been suspended for disciplinary reasons and John Crossland was on a Mediterranean cruise. However, they had two new bowlers, one older chap, who turned up on time on his bicycle and a younger Asian chap, but more about them later.

Emil Todorow, the Nomads captain, informed us that we would be playing a timed match. Andy won the toss and rightly chose to bat against what appeared to be a depleted Nomads team, missing some of their players because of Ramadan. Todorow took on the responsibility of bowling uphill into the wind, and put in a wholehearted performance in a new pair of tan brown shoes, sending down 11 successive overs. Naren Patel, who was umpiring at the time, expressed some concern to Emil that his brown shoes did not have spikes and that he might slip, but Emil reassured Naren that, "I will not slip as it has not rained". To prove the point, Emil took the first wicket, yorking Quentin Davies in the third over.

The older chap who had turned up at the ground on a bicycle opened the bowling at the other hand and trundled the ball down reasonably accurately at medium pace, but was not that threatening. However, once the bowler had finished his opening spell, he clearly decided his work for the day was done and hardly moved in the field, restricting himself to a long chunter about anything and everything.

The young Asian chap, Raj, came on to bowl first change and the general consensus was he should have opened the bowling as he sent down some rapid deliveries on a good line and length. Roberts and Bradshaw managed to keep the bowlers out while maintaining a scoring rate of around four runs per over in a second wicket stand of 94. It took the introduction of Bruce-Mills' medium-pacers to make the breakthrough as he bowled Bradshaw for 35 with a delivery which kept rather low. Amil Patel came to the wicket and made a breezy 31 runs, adding 32 runs for the third wicket with Keith Roberts, as we reached 136 for 2 from 29 overs. Then the fun started, and I shall illustrate it with an over by over commentary on the rest of the innings:

  • 30th over – Roberts' fine innings of 67 ends as he drives a catch off Raj to Todorow at mid-off (136 for 3).
  • 31st over – Bruce-Mills lures Tither into playing a shot too early and lifting the ball straight back to the bowler (137 for 4). Owen Draper gets off the mark with a mow through mid-wicket for three runs.
  • 32nd over – Raj is a bit much for Draper and bowls him with a pacy straight delivery (146 for 5). Raj gives Chris White a very uncomfortable time at the crease, hitting him at least twice before inducing him into lofting a catch to short cover (146 for 6).
  • 33rd over – Amil gets a few runs off Bruce-Mills' bowling, and no wickets are taken (!!!).
  • 34th over – Amil is cleaned up another quick delivery from Raj (159 for 7)
  • 35th over – The opening trundler replaces Bruce-Mills in the attack and Andy and his league team captain, Adam Uttley, dither over a straightforward third run, which leads to Uttley being run out for nought (163 for 8). Jeff enters and gets off the mark with a late cut for a single before Wingfield is stumped, trying to mow a very wide ball over mid-wicket (164 for 9). Naren gets off the mark with a cover hit for two runs.
  • 36th over – Jeff fails to look at the first three deliveries from the fast bowler before getting a single off the fourth one. Naren smacks a catch straight to Todorow (167 all out) – so there we go, we lost eight wickets for 31 runs in seven overs as Raj finished with 5 for 40. Well, at least everyone got to have a bat!

Fortified by the Nomads' excellent tea, we went out to field, but the two Nomads opening batsmen played pretty well against our opening attack of Wingfield and Hilson. Wingfield took the first wicket as the batsman mistimed a pull shot for Chris White to take the catch at square leg. Hilson struggled with running uphill into the wind, but still bowled some threatening deliveries. The remaining opening batsman, Sumith, played very well, hitting a mighty straight six off John Tither, while Kennedy, the No.3, really struggled against Tither in particular, but the Nomads reached the last 20 overs at about 60 for 1. Kennedy began to settle and play some decent shots before he had his off-stump uprooted by Uttley, who maintained a consistent off-stump line throughout his good eight over spell.

Raj, who had earlier been so impressive with the ball, came to the wicket and proceeded to hit his first two balls for four over cover and mid-off. "Oh dear!" many of us thought, "this might be tricky!" or words to that effect. However, the redoubtable Naren Patel got rid of the dangerous Raj, having him lbw in the next over. The Nomads' No. 5 was unable to find any fluency and he was also dismissed by Naren Patel as Davies completed a fine catch at gully in which he parried the ball and then caught the ball as it fell behind him. Nick Lefebvre entered for the Nomads, and Wingfield decided to crowd him with close fielders – a potentially dangerous ploy as Lefebvre nearly took Keith Roberts' head off with a firm hit when Keith was fielding close in to him a few years ago. Naren Patel kept the ball away from Lefebvre's favourite leg-side, and maintained his length despite Lefebvre's efforts to disturb his concentration with his little "Morris dance" down the pitch. Patel finally had Lefebvre caught behind with a lifting off-stump delivery, and finished with the excellent figures of 3 for 5 off seven overs.

Todorow strolled to the wicket and it was clear from his first delivery he had now decided to play for the draw, which he completed admirably. Sumith, the opening batsman, bashed a couple more boundaries, and was dropped by Bradshaw about five overs before the end off the luckless White, but there were little further alarms as the Nomads closed on 131 for 5. While this was a thoroughly enjoyable match played in good spirit by both sides, I must mention that both teams had pretty poor over rates, and this is what puts off me off timed games. I reckon that the team batting first should get 43 overs in two and a half hours, and the team batting second should expect a total of 38 overs, but the Nomads only bowled 36 overs and we bowled 35. 15 overs per hour might be acceptable in Test cricket (where there are frequent field changes and bowlers have longer run-ups and need to pace themselves over a whole day in the field), but we should be able to do better. Man of the match for his innings of 67 was Keith Roberts.

Report By: Mark Bradshaw

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