A REPORT BY MARK BRADSHAW
On a second successive warm Sunday, Clapham Nomads hosted Touring Theatre XI at Abbey Recreation ground, South Wimbledon. On a dry wicket which looked likely to break up as the match went on, Emil Todorow rightly elected to bat on winning the toss. Mark Bradshaw and Prasanth again opened the batting for the Nomads. Prasanth quickly got into his stride on a slow wicket and was slapping short deliveries to the boundary on both sides of the wicket. Bradshaw was content to look for singles and the partnership reached 94 with Prasanth completing his first fifty for the team. Just when a century seemed on the cards, Prasanth played on to a dreadful long-hop after making 66 fine runs.
Bradshaw and Abdul Khan put on a small stand before Bradshaw edged behind for a somewhat sedate (actually it was boring) 38. Abdul played some solid attacking shots before he was out for 28, stumped off the bowling of Warnaby, who despite being hardly able to run was probably the pick of the bowlers with his off-spinners. Than the real fun started as Hassan Khan and Ajmal put on over 90 runs in 10 overs, and Ajmal completed his first 50 for us in a splendid display of attacking batting. Hassan was run out for 45 in the last over and Rob Jenkins scored his first run for the team as Nomads closed on 249 for 4 from their 40 overs.
Touring Theatres had a decent top 4 in their batting line-up, but at least 3 of them would need to fire if they were going to challenge our total. However, in the 2nd over, one of their openers swiped across the line against Todorow and paid the price. Trenchell and Nomi then started playing some excellent shots and inducing some fielding errors with some good running. The Nomads appeared a little flat in the field for several overs. There is always a danger when you've made a big total that you can slip into thinking all you need to do is go through the motions to beat the opposition. Thankfully, the dangerous Nomi's innings was cut short as he slapped a full-toss from Jenkins straight to Abdul Khan who completed a one-handed catch at square leg. The wickets then tumbled and after 15 overs Touring Theatres were 49 for 6 with only Trenchell making much headway against the Nomads' bowling as Jenkins finished with 3 for 15 and Todorow 2 for 21. Theatres' 7th wicket partnership did show some spirit, but once Gideon Reeve (4 for 12) had made the breakthrough, the rest of the innings fell away a little with Rob Jenkins taking 3 catches all at short-ish cover off Gideon's bowling. Nick Lefebve bowled 5 overs of his left-arm slows and it was nice to see his arm was still as low as ever in preparation for the Energy Exiles in a couple of weeks and he bemused the batsmen several times with his swerve and flight. The No.11 entertained us with some bold shots before Ajmal was brought into the attack and shattered the No.11's stumps to complete a 157 run victory. Our bowling and fielding performance wasn't quite as good as the previous week, but it was certainly satisfactory against very pleasant opponents who really didn't get much luck throughout the match.
Man of the Match was prasanth for his 66 which set us on the way to our large total. Fielder of the Day was Rob Jenkins for his three catches, but honourable mention should also go to Abdul.
NOMADS - 249 for 4 from 40 overs
Bradshaw, 38
Prasanth, 66
A. Khan, 28
H. Khan, 43
Ajmal, 54 Not out
Jenkins, 1 Not out
TOURING THEATRE XI - 92 all out from 34.2 overs
Jenkins 7-4-15-3
Todorow 8-1-21-2
Reeve 8-4-12-4
Lefebve 5-0-21-0
Nissar Khan 4-2-8-0
Ajmal 2.2-1-6-1
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