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Report
A vibrant 91 by Paul Bowman led St. Anne's Allstars to only their second victory against The Gents, who posted a hard-earned 181. On a day of notable batsmanship, Chris Boden scored 52 on début and Sumit Kumar posted a personal best of 64, putting up 91 for the first Gents' wicket in 20.2 overs, but Bowman also found a partner in James Hindle and their 112 stand was a matchwinner. Boden became only the fifth Gent after Mark Ashton, Dhruv Patel, Nabil Husain and Ahsan Iqbal to card a 50 and take four wickets. Never before had The Gents lost a game in which two of their players had scored 50s.
St. Anne's surprisingly inserted The Gents on as hot day, but captain Maxie Haddow-Allen was vindicated as the wicket flattened. It was a solid enough total, but the later batsmen never broke free and were pegged pack in mid-innings by the slows of Grant and Haddow-Allen. At 19 over drinks, Gents were 90-0, but despite worthwhile contributions from Palmer and a violent 25 off only 10 balls faced by Hemin Patel, well supported by Caveney, the innings rather coasted in its second half. Boden hit eight 4s, Kumar 11, at least one of which was controversial as The Gents took half the innings to sort out boundary markers, chief engineer Bender opting for a quirky solution of twigs, which were promptly chewed by a happy dog. Though lacking in facilities, Barnes Common is a good ground and the white-ball ground rule gave The Gents plenty to talk about. Very pretty it looked too with Kumar's tracer cover-drives and Boden's clean hitting on both sides of the wicket.
St. Anne's Allstars do a good tea and nobody went hungry. All looked set fair for The Gents at half-time.
The early overs of the innings had sportswriters testing their descriptive powers. Pogrom and carnage were bang on, as the hosts raced to 24-0 off four overs and never looked back. Hill's full-tosses were bashed about by Haddow-Allen and although the doughty Boden cleaned him up, and had Reid caught behind first ball (Denton, The Gents' No.3 also got a golden duck, caught at slip), Hindle and Bowman were rarely troubled. Wright beat the bat a few times and Laing deserved more than his singleton, but the stand of 112 took only 17.2 overs and the game fell out of the visitors' reach. A few tough chances were shelled, but Caveney clung on at deep mid-wicket to break the stand. Hindle had batted 21 overs and hit three 4s. Boden was soon on a Hat-trick for the second time when he castled Bowman and had Grant caught at silly mid-off but 14 came from Laing's next over. Hautot smashed Boden for six over long-on into the trees and victory came at six o'clock with over seven overs unbowled. The Obscene Publications Act (1959) was not specifically enacted to deal with cricket, but it is our duty to publish the bowling figures as a matter of record for future generations, so please do not report us. Despite the defeat, everyone had a good day out in fine weather, the hottest for an April game since 1990.
Wiseacres later observed that The Gents should have got 230. Perhaps they should, but who is to say that 50 more runs would have denied such talented batsmen? Thanks are freely given to the West XI guests and the friendly hosts. Although Mr. Laing believes he has played for The Gents before, there is no record in the annals. This mystery needs to be cleared up pronto.
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