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After a fielding performance described
by Stewart Taylor at half-time as “brilliant” The Gents’ innings
exploded with the finality of the scuttled German pocket battleship
Admiral Graf Spee outside Montevideo harbour in 1939. Thus West XI
won a convincing victory at gusty Surbiton. It is difficult to see
how The Gents can come back to win the 2005 BAMC from here, though
it would be disappointing if the next two games were not closer, as
many recent clashes have been.
The game started a little late with four men playing their first
BAMC game. Though three of them would not have liked the result,
they would have liked the atmosphere, which was competitive but
always sporting and friendly. Taylor, depping for the injured Chris
Wright, won the toss, ummed for a moment and decided to bat but his
hesitation looked misplaced as Vyas and Dane set about the bowling
after Vine’s early lbw to Sanjay. Dane was dropped twice before a
diving Buck poached him at slip off Scibo, who along with Nabil was
the pick of The Gents’ attack. Vyas batted 24 overs in testing
circumstances before shelling a Dhruv full-toss to backward
square-leg Hemin. This lifted The Gents as a flurry of wickets fell
in the final 15 overs, seven of them and only 72 runs added. The
fact that these runs alone would have been enough for West XI would
not have dawned on the participants. Clarke impressed with the bat
but there were no weak links in the field – The Gents even managed
two comedy run outs as Taylor and Hill were undone by
misunderstandings.
It was the best outfielding performance against West XI for many a
game, the only downside being the drops and too many extras, 15
Wides, 6 No balls (none harshly adjudged, there was no Ling in the
umpire’s coat), 10 Byes and 4 Leg-byes. The Gents need to look at
this.
What made the second innings so depressing is that with the
exception of Richard Gilkes it is the strongest the club can
currently field in the continued absence of Wayne Thompson. Yes,
everyone is entitled to an off-day, yes, the pitch was bouncy, yes,
the bowling was competent (and in the case of Vine, hostile) but
SIXTY ALL OUT? For the record Justin was bowled, Dhruv superbly
caught by Laing at deep fine-leg off a top-edged hook and HP lbw
after a strokeless vigil. That was 9/3 in 9 overs, the top order
having nurtured a required run rate of 4.7 up to 6.0 in 30 glorious
minutes. Wright (picking out mid-off Taylor), Sanjay and Buck (both
bowled having a heave) then fell to poor shots. Only Nabil showed
any technique, striking four fours and defending well before edging
behind to give Vine his first wicket, whereupon the Aussie great
white shark began his feeding frenzy.
An example of how bad it was. In the 21.5 overs the Beggars bowled,
there were about 12 sit up and tap me to the boundary please
full-tosses, only one of which went for four (a Turpin pull). Few
even saw bat applied to ball, and this with a lightning outfield.
Gents batting has to be better than that.
The spectre of a sub-50 total was averted with some commonsense
batting from Hemin, Turpin and Butt but Tony Buck had by now affixed
a white flag, which he waved from the pavilion at the end of the
game in a powerful if grim gesture.
West XI’s own match reporter noted that “The Gents are obviously a
team in transition but played as well as they could in the
circumstances against a West XI outfit that seems unstoppable at the
present time.” That was a charitable comment on our own beloved club
but bang on regarding a disciplined, talented but above all likeable
Beggar outfit, who were the better side here by a distance.
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