Energy Exiles Cricket Club

Match Summary: vs. Wealdstone Corinthians, Saturday, 14 Jun 2008

Ground: Rayners Lane, Harrow
Captain: Andrew Wingfield
Match type: Timed
Toss: Exiles elected to field
Weather: Fine
Opposition: Wealdstone Corinthians scored: 96 all out (31 overs)
Exiles Score: 37 all out (25 overs)
Result: Lost by 59 runs
Man of the match: Philip Humphreys 6 for 46

Exiles crashed to their 4th defeat of a so far difficult season on Saturday - losing by 59 runs despite bowling the opposition out for less than a hundred.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Exiles only had 4 players at the ground at the toss, Exiles won the toss (again!) and decided to field.

Even when everybody had arrived the Exiles still only had 8 players, including 2 debutants - Owen Lewis and Nat Duke. A shame that we didn't have a full side certainly, but understandable given the fact that the game was on a Saturday and in North London, for a change. At least we didn't let the opposition down and made a game of it (until we batted!).

Right from the off, the Exiles bowlers were on top, as they found a moderate looking Cavendish Rec. pitch was actually a beauty to bowl on - as length balls sometimes shot along the ground and other times found extra bounce, whilst balls not quite on a perfect length (surely there weren't many of these?) did likewise too. Phil Humphreys, opening from the bottom end, in fact proved to be an expert at taking wickets with erratically bouncing long-hops - looking embarrassed and apologising in so doing. He'll learn to be less polite in future - its says "bowled Humphreys' in the book… In fact, skipper Wingfield, opening from the top, followed Humphreys' lead by "using the pitch' to take a couple of somewhat fortunate wickets also.

Given the lack of bowlers in the Exiles 8, it was a good effort by the Exiles openers, who bowled 26 overs between them and alternated the wicket-taking for the first 7 wickets to fall - until Phil got greedy and took one out of turn - and generally kept things pretty accurate to avoid providing any relief for the Corinthians batsmen. Only one of the Corinthians top order batsmen seriously threatened the scorers by hitting a quick-fire 18 - but he was undone by the ultimate long-hop from Humphreys which dug into the pitch half-way up, and was well on its way down when it hit the stumps - a good few seconds after the batsman had finished his shot! To be fair to Phil, he also took wickets with some quality bowling - the best being the in-swinger that disturbed the stumps of the opposition captain.

Yet with 9 wickets down and only about 60 runs on the board, it started to go wrong for the Exiles. With the opposition number 11 Steve Brown now batting, Wingfield and Humphreys contrived a perfect plan to try to oust this obdurate looking tail-ender. "Let him block a couple and then bowl a much slower one and he'll mis-time it straight to a fielder". Hey presto the plan worked perfectly with the 3rd ball of the over skied to mid-off, but the opportunity was dropped. And it turned out to be quite important as Cundy, strangely only batting at 9, smashed an impressive 33 not out and enabled a last wicket stand of over 30 to take the Corinthians total to 96, before Nat Duke picked up a deserved wicket on debut as Brown finally did hole out at mid-off. A great effort though by the Exiles in the field - Humphreys bowled 15 overs, taking 6 wickets, and was very unlucky not to get a magnificent 7. Wingfield was accurate and bowled 11 overs to pick up 3 wickets for only 13 runs, and Duke, although a bit rusty, showed potential. Wealdstone finished on 96 all out - but the Exiles regulars knew what was to come….

Except Wakeel Shah, better known to the Exiles as "The Afghan", and still the only bowler the author has ever batted in a helmet against, announced himself injured and wouldn't be bowling. Queue broad smiles across the Exiles batters' faces. Confusion quickly reigned though, as the Corinthians opened with a spinner - Rohan Meswani. Unfortunately, he turned out to be rather good. Glover initially smashed him to the square-leg boundary, but in trying to do so again a few balls later heard the death rattle; Patel Junior, in a need of a few runs, and Owen Lewis also fell, bamboozled by a spinner who could "spin it both ways". Looked like it was going straight on from where I was sitting! Ahem.

Xylophone starts with the letter X; but that's not important right now. What is the fact that Q and Wil tried to provide a fight back for the Exiles. At least in terms of survival they partially achieved this - with Q getting 10 off 44 balls before nicking one to slip off Brown, an over after being dropped by the keeper, whilst Wil powered his way to 3 off 42 balls.

Indeed it became apparent that batting out for a draw, in a timed game when chasing only 97 to win, might be the Exiles best bet of escaping. But Wil was bowled playing back to Cundy, and Shah D cleaned up Duke and Humphreys pretty quickly. Exiles were all out (i.e. 7 wickets down) for 37 in 25 overs, to lose by 59 runs.

Lessons learned - try to get more than 8 players in future. Credit to Wealdstone for sportingly lending us a fielder and actually having only 9 in the field didn't prove much of an issue (I'm not sure what this says about our fielding normally!) - though we could have done with another bowler or two. A certain N Patel was sorely missed.

Even with such a low total to chase, it became apparent worryingly quickly that the Exiles were unlikely to get anywhere near the winning line - the recruitment of a quality top order batsman or two would certainly aid the clubs performances significantly. But the Corinthians also have a strong bowling line up - Brown's accuracy, Meswani's spin, Shah D's seam; and not to mention Wakeel's pace - which we can look forward to, I'd expect, in the rematch in a few weeks time.

So onwards to the next game and the search for an elusive winning run continues.

Man-of-the-match to Phil Humphreys for his 6 wickets.

Report By: Andy Wingfield

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