The Gentlemen of West London Cricket Club

Gentlemen of West London v. Wombles (Game 1 - 35 Overs)

Sunday 30 August 2009, Victoria RG, Surbiton. Wombles won toss. Cloudy, 17C

Won by 17 runs

The Gents and Lloyd Wahed’s Wombles graced a cool and windy Surbiton with one of the most bizarre yet exciting day’s cricket in many a moon. Though not all the batsmanship was of the highest quality, the excellence of the two attacks provided entertainment all the way and Wombles could easily have won both games. This 2009 GWLCC squad, however, refuse to give up the ghost and turned round two likely defeats. Captain Hemin Patel referred to ‘passion and pride’. Couple that to capricious, sometimes abysmal batting and you have the day in synopsis.

Lacking Shu Desai with an injured car, several other Gents were late in arriving. Tony Buck claimed he did not know he was playing but oddly had still brought his whites. This ground induces feelings of warm nostalgia in him: he claimed to have seen the ghost of very much alive former player Daniel Todd walking up to the ground from the station. Ravi Inkollu was also late arriving due to work commitments in the J Sainsbury bakery and the captain had to reshuffle the batting order. This lack of organisation – only ten men and two of them late – gave an early 90s feel to proceedings. It was therefore completely predictable that The Gents would collapse as they did.

For Ashton and Maughan in 1990 read Inkollu and Rudru here. They alone withstood the hurricane of the opening pair Ed Babar and Spencely and the skilful swing bowling of Carroll and Rob Babar. The pitch was two-paced but directly contributed to only one wicket, the captain bowled by one that kept a little low. The innings subsided in a mere 14.1 overs with four ducks. The bowling was faultless and the catching alert.

At half-time in the Cairns Fudge match in June Horace Hibbert had impressed upon The Gents how the game could still be won from a position of disadvantage. Mindful of those words, the captain made a similar speech here. As he led his team out The Gents looked full of belief and confidence.

The two highest scorers opened the bowling and Wombles were soon on the back foot. Inkollu and Rudru, who opened with a double wicket-maiden, took three wickets in the first two overs and two more in the next three. At 8-5 the innings was in a tailspin. Buck, one-handed and Kalidindi took perfectly judged catches when the ball seemed to have passed them. Not to be outdone Inkollu took one running round from deep mid-off (known as the Gilkes Snaffle) and Newcombe one protecting his face on the mid-wicket boundary. The opening bowlers shared seven wickets; there were also two for Kalidindi and one for the captain.

Late hope for Wombles came with a powerful assault by Ed Babar but Inkollu soon had his man in his second spell. The innings lasted under 16 overs and the game only 30. The Gents had, with their sixth lowest score of all time, somehow scraped a win. No records were set, but only once had a lower Gents score batting first resulted in a victory. It was then an improbable result. Would they still be celebrating 40 overs later?

As the previous shoot out had finished at 3.30pm, the teams regrouped for a Twenty20, which turned into a classic with a host of talking points. Substitute fielder Colicci took four catches, equalling the record for a Gents outfielder set by Sachin Desai in May, Wayne Caveney top scored in only his second game of organised cricket and The Gents yet again turned a loss into victory after two eccentric final overs from Wombles, one of which extended, even with minute writing, into a third box in the scorebook. The fact that this match produced double the runs of the first, as did similar games against Saints and Rams in 2008, could be adduced as evidence of either a wicket easing through the day, batsmen becoming more relaxed or the batting technique in the sedate, time-honoured 35 over format being destroyed by Satan’s own shorter form.

Wombles began fluently, moving to a promising 65-3 after 10 overs. They were allowed to add only 49 in the final ten as Rudru came into his own. His four wickets gave him seven over the two games, one more than Inkollu. Each of the main batsmen got a promising start but none could go on. The fluent Spencely top scored and Young hit the only six of the day. Martin took a neat catch to complement Colicci’s quartet.

An assertive start by Rudru, Desai and Kalidindi saw 44 come up in only six overs before fine bowling began to peg The Gents back. The innings limped from 60-3 off 10 overs to 74-8 off 16 (just 14 runs in six overs and 30 in ten) as Wombles homed in on the win, Rob Babar getting alarming swing to complement his brother’s speed. The four main bowlers were now bowled out, so Wahed had to use two more. After due pondering, he opted for himself and Collins, whose only ball in the first game had produced the prized wicket of Inkollu.

Five wides and a Caveney two came from Wahed’s first over before poor Collins’s singleton. His over went for 24 including 15 off the bat, twelve coming in three brutal Caveney boundaries. These ten minutes of mayhem brought The Gents to 105-8 off 18 overs. Wahed’s second over went for Four, Dot, Wide, Three, Dot followed by two wild aerial No balls to finish the game. It was a stunning climax. Wayne Caveney (nicknamed Buzz Lightyear after his chiselled good looks) was the unlikely but most delightful of heroes but nobody should misunderestimate the contribution of Ken Toft, in pain with backache but bravely refusing a runner. One had, it has to be said, every sympathy for Wahed and Collins but such is life.

Perhaps inspired by the fat West Ham Üntermenschen earlier in the week, or more likely West XI in

Spain

in 2008, The Gents then embarked on an unseemly pitch invasion, the scourge of modern cricket. But it was all good clean fun, or at least was intended to be.

On an historical note, this writer had high hopes in 2006 and 2007 that the likes of Lloyd Wahed, Alex Young, Sean Carroll and the Babar brothers Rob and Ed would become integral members of The Gents. For various reasons this didn’t happen, though it may one day. Because of this, the friendliness of the entire Wombles team plus supporters and the excellent food they brought they were most welcome visitors. This fixture will be much looked forward to in 2010.