The traditional "Longest Day" fixture against local rivals the Energy Exiles is fast becoming one of the highlights of the season. On Thursday there was some doubt whether the match could go ahead but eventually Exiles filled their final few places - and filled them with quality. The venue was the Del Ballard Recreation Ground in Dundonald Road, Wimbledon. I am starting to love this place; ok you get the occasional dead crow lying around and the pitches are too close together, meaning that you risk being decapitated by shots from Sri Lankan League players; but the wickets always seem to play well, it is easy to get to, it has the Ballard connection and, also, Kingston Lefthanders hate it - which means it must have some merit (only joking KL, if you are reading.)
Nomads were down to 10 men due, sadly, to a bereavement.
Skipper Emil Todorow won yet another toss and chose to bat. With his calm but authoritarian Capello-like air, Todorow is even starting to dominate coins and his call of "Heads" was an order rather than a guess.
Mark Bradshaw faced up to his old colleagues and there was a lively start from left-arm quickie and Exiles skipper Andy Wingfield who found the edge of Bradshaw's bat with movement off the pitch - four runs was the result. At the other end a new face to the Nomads, Jeremy Meyer, soon impressed. Ben Fewson was straight off the mark but Meyer bagged the vital wicket of Bradshaw, bowled in the second over with the help of a thick inside edge and a rather large slice of luck.
It was imperative to steady things straight away and No. 3 Prasanth Pattiyil did just that. It was useful to have an experienced opener coming in at this point and Prasanth provided excellent support to Fewson who began to accelerate cautiously. Prasanth scored mostly in ones and twos but played one particularly fine shot past point, making the ball spin away from the clutches of the diving fielder. The recovery was well under way when Fewson really took the attack to Exiles with two resounding boundaries off second change Will Bentall. Wicketkeeper Wil Scott speculated that Fewson had yet to find the middle of the bat. Well if he had timed these shots any better they would have cleared the boundary - the borough boundary.
The partnership cruised past the 50 mark. Simon Gundry as first change had opened with good speed but hadn't really found his accuracy until he appealed for a rather adjacent LBW shout against Prasanth. The rebuttal of this appeal seemed to galvanise the big paceman and he bowled as fiery a spell as I have seen him produce. With the help of a diving catch from Wingfield, he quickly dismissed Fewson for a useful 37 to make the score 69 for 2 and then he ripped out the stumps of Pattiyil and No. 5 Riaz Khan in successive balls. This spell completely changed the character of Nomads' innings and, on reflection, it would probably have been better if the LBW appeal had been granted, whether it was out or not.
This burst brought together Gopi Pala and Emil Todorow, two players who always seem to bat well together. Gopi produced some good leg-side hits to take Nomads past 100, while Todorow produced the shot we all wanted to see; the brutal forced blow through mid-off that is a cross between a cut and a drive. Gopi continued to find success with lofted shots but was unfortunate to send one straight to mid-wicket to end a useful stand of 29 which had put Nomads back in with some kind of a chance at 105 for 6 with plenty of overs to go. Gideon Reeve's first ball was a long-hop from spinner David Stiffell and he had the right idea in aiming to belt it away for 4 but unfortunately he appeared to find the bottom edge and was bowled.
This left Nomads founder-members Todorow, Crossland and Lefebve to attempt to force the score up to respectability and, no doubt, provide some Senior Moments. Crossland stuck around for a while but was bowled by Stiffell. Lefebve was last man as his injury would deprive him of his ability - such as it is - to take sharp singles. The returning Wingfield greeted him with an excellent bouncer which was gloved to safety but followed up with a long-hop on the batsman's favourite leg-side which went for 4. Todorow elbowed a ball from Meyer to the boundary but then fell to the same bowler leaving Nomads all out for 125. We had failed to use 10 of our 40 overs but, since the score was about the same as in last year's match, which Exiles won with 2 balls remaining, there was at least hope that it could be close.
Both Exiles' Patels had turned up to watch part of the match and we had hopes of poaching one of them to make up our 11 but sadly Amil had a broken thumb - we wish you a speedy recovery Amil - and Naren had to leave for family commitments
The familiar left-handed figure of Keith Roberts took guard and applied himself to the task of grinding down Nomads' openers Hassan Khan and Emil Todorow (so often Roberts' nemesis.) The Exiles man looked profoundly untroubled on this occasion but with the normally more aggressive Quentin Davies scoring even more slowly than Roberts, progress was cautious and after 10 overs the score was only 20. With an overall required rate of just above 3 an over, though, there was no need for the batsmen to rush. They saw off the openers but first change Gideon Reeve was into his stride straight away. There was little variable bounce to work with but accuracy soon did the trick as Reeve made the breakthrough in his second over, bowling Davies for 11.
On came Gopi Pala and he quickly produced some of his best bowling of the season. There was a bit of high bounce at his end and the Mystery Bowler exploited this and also bowled No. 3 Searle with a good one. Roberts was perhaps slightly unfortunate to be given LBW to Gopi despite getting in a reasonable stride. 30 for 3 and Nomads were beginning to buzz. A dangerous partnership between Sri Pathmanathan and James Watson was ended by a piece of typical Nomadic fielding brilliance - a bullet throw from Hassan Khan was well collected by Gideon Reeve who whipped off the bails to run out Watson who had been attempting a risky second run.
The required rate at this stage was fluctuating between 4 and 4.5 an over but we knew there were heavy scorers down the order and wickets were paramount. We soon had a vital one with Gopi yorking Pathmanathan to make it 58 for 5. Simon Gundry and Wil Scott dug in but soon began to score fairly freely and made their way up to 80 when Riaz Khan bowled Scott. 4 wickets remained and around 4 an over was needed. Gundry was beginning to look dangerous and we knew Andy Wingfield can disturb the scorers. We also had a suspicion that some of Exiles' new players were unlikely to be the worst batsmen in the world. So it proved as No. 8 Will Bentall, after picking his way gingerly through a tight 5 balls from Emil Todorow, took one step down the pitch and despatched the veteran seamer over long on for 6, dashing Todorow's hopes of yet another maiden and Nomads' hopes of victory.
Riaz Khan planted a short one into S. Gundry's midriff but, like the LBW incident, this proved to be counter-productive as the big all-rounder absolutely murdered the next ball clean out of the ground, narrowly missing a lucky motorist in Dundonald Road. The last rites were administered fairly perfunctorily to Nomads with these two batsmen sharing five sixes as Exiles swept to a 4-wicket victory with 7 overs to spare.
It was a great all-round performance from Simon Gundry without which we could have got a lot closer. Exiles probably had a little more depth in their batting, certainly in the lower order, but it was a good bowling display from Nomads with all 5 bowlers looking good. Fielding was fair from a side depleted by absence and injury; there were a few chances but they were mostly pretty tricky or came too late.
So honours are even between these great rivals over the two games and it would be a particularly cheap and sad individual who would claim an aggregate victory for the Nomads on faster run rate, especially if he added that it was by a margin of 4.98 to 3.81.
Man of the Match has to be Ben Fewson who produced the highest score by quite a margin and also some fine fielding - see below. The best individual piece of fielding was Hassan and Gideon's run out but Ben Fewson is Fielder of the Day for a performance which combined solidity - he stopped just about everything, mostly with one hand -and the type of flair and artistic interpretation which is rarely seen from Clapham Nomads players; well, on the field anyway.
CLAPHAM NOMADS - 125 all out from 29.5 overs
M. Bradshaw b Meyer 4
B. Fewson c Wingfield b Gundry 37
P. Pattiyil b Gundry 15
H. Khan c Searle b Bentall 9
R. Khan b Gundry 0
G. Pala c Gundry b Stiffell 14
E. Todorow (cpt) b Meyer 8
G. Reeve b Stiffell 0
J. Crossland (wkt) b Stiffell 0
N. Lefebve not out 4
F.O.W. - 5, 69, 82, 82, 86, 105, 105, 115, 125
Bowling;
Wingfield 6-0-29-0
Meyer 6.5-2-18-2
Gundry 6-1-15-3
Bentall 8-1-30-2
Stiffell 3-0-17-2
ENERGY EXILES - 127 for 6 from 33.3 overs
K. Roberts lbw Pala 14
Q. Davies b Reeve 11
J. Searle b Pala 0
S. Pathmanathan b Pala 15
Watson run out 7
W. Scott(wkt) b R. Khan 9
S. Gundry not out 37
W. Bentall not out 20
Did not bat; A. Wingfield (cpt), J. Meyer, D. Stiffell
F.O.W. - 24, 29, 30, 54, 58, 80
Bowling;
H. Khan 6.3-0-18-0
E. Todorow 8-1-26-0
G. Reeve 6-2-15-1
G. Pala 8-1-31-3
R. Khan 5-1-32-1
Clapham Nomads lost by 4 wickets
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