It was a much-changed Nomads side that made the journey to Ruxley Lane, Ewell, for the revival of this fixture against a side we used to play a few years back. Several regulars dropped out due to Ramadan and Andrew West failed to appear, due to Arsenal.
Batting and especially bowling had a makeshift look and Emil Todorow inserted West One on a damp wicket. With only three front-line bowlers, Todorow had to consider his options carefully and he decided to play his trump cards first in a bid to cut through the top order and protect his lesser bowlers. Gopi took the new ball for the first time for Nomads and soon had success with the total on 6, scattering the stumps with a ball that kept low. Emil Todorow locked on to the target and also found some irregular bounce and the score trickled along quite gently at around 3 an over until a double-bowling change after 12 overs. Terry Bruce-Mills took over from Gopi and his accurate, floated slow medium had West One's Australian / South African pair looking to force the score. Not so easy on this pitch and the chances soon began to come. 2 catches were put down off Terry 's bowling by out-fielders and at least one sharp caught behind shout went begging. Nomads kept a lid on things nicely, although the batsmen were fairly conservative in their running between the wickets. The Australian No. 3 began to play some powerful leg-side shots off Prasanth but Darwin intervened with a good catch at cover off Bruce-Mills's bowling before too much damage was done.
Drinks were taken at 20 overs with the score only about 70 for 2 and the partnership consolidated further after the break. On about 100 for 2 off 25, although Nomads' bowling figures looked good, you would have to say that West One's early order had done a fine job and given the team ample opportunity to accelerate against Nomads' part-time bowlers.
Prasanth Pattiyil, Darwin and Nick Lefebve have only bowled 20 competitive overs between them this season and they didn't really bowl all that badly, but the pressure was right off for West One who could play their shots at will. Lefebve started ok with 1 for 15 off his first 3 overs of Round-Arm slows, and made the breakthrough by dismissing the South African opener for 68 courtesy of a good catch by Gopi at short mid-on; but the replacement batsman, Attwood-Smith looked "a class above" and, with a series of gorgeous straight and off drives, dismissed the veteran left-armer imperiously from the attack. There was also a wicket for Darwin but the scoring rate of around 8 an over in this period probably took the total beyond the reach of this Nomads line-up. The pick of the part-time bowlers was debutant Mark Milnes who, despite not having bowled for 12 years, showed good accuracy in bowling 2 men in the final over, when the slog was on. Emil Todorow also came back for 2 overs at the death and looked almost unplayable in this second spell. West One closed on 210 for 6 off 40 which no sane man could say was a disaster with the bowling line-up we had.
West One's tea is legendary. A few years ago, they played at a ground in West Wimbledon that also had good quality tennis courts and they trooped in at the interval during a June fixture to find the Williams sisters munching their sandwiches. There can surely be no finer endorsement and I like to think that the sisters, Serena certainly, came back for seconds and also sampled the excellent cake selection. I know I did.
There was plenty to chew over for Todorow and the early Nomads batting-order. The target of 211 was unlikely to be straightforward, given the slowness of the pitch and the amount of Southern Hemisphere accents we could hear.
Mark Bradshaw and Mahesh Vyas opened and it was clear they had a job on their hands against the rapid Attwood-Smith, a South African Grade Cricketer, and the swing of Chet Bain, an archetypal London club cricketer; busy, competitive and shaping the ball away from the bat. Our lads kept out plenty of good stuff and managed to keep the run rate just shy of 3 an over with deft placement and excellent running between the wickets. Mahesh was a little bogged down by Bain who bowled a good off-side line and he was the first man to fall at 36, trying to pull from outside off and skying the ball. The good start was continued by Prasanth in support of Bradshaw, who looked in fine touch with plenty of time to play the ball, and began to up the tempo with his trademark off-side shots.
Webber, bowling a little too short, and the innocuous-looking Burton were brought into the attack and it was Burton who did the damage. Prasanth snatched at his first ball, a long hop, and was caught off the top edge in the deep. Burton soon accounted for Mark Milnes and Nomads found themselves 71 for 3 with 140 to win off about 18 overs and missing most of our middle-order hitters. No. 5 Nick Lefebve had instructions to stay there and stop the rot while Mark Bradshaw approached a deserved half-century; sadly, on 37, Bradshaw scooped a Burton delivery up to wide mid-off to give West One's big third-changer his 3rd wicket.
Enter Darwin, whose batting has evolved since last season and showed plenty of promise with a crackerjack off-drive which a brave fielder did well to stop. Inevitably, our No. 6 fell to Burton for 10, shortly after he had edged the same bowler onto the stumps without dislodging a bail.
Nick Lefebve had meanwhile fallen, again to Burton, for 13 but not before inadvertently causing a nasty injury to West One's keeper, Adam Fahey. Lefebve skied a pull which looked like just clearing the keeper but the glovesman stretched and dived and looked to have held on to a good catch, unfortunately he dropped it when hitting the ground and, in the process, appeared to dislocate a shoulder. He was in agony and it resulted in, perhaps surprisingly, the first appearance at a Nomads fixture of the London Ambulance Service. We wish Adam, a lovely bloke, a speedy recovery and hope he can make West One's forthcoming tour of Romania.
Nomads batting could have tailed off as the required rate rose but instead we were treated a brilliantly entertaining display of hitting from No. 7 Gopi who hit a series of shots through and over mid-wicket, a couple of them dropping inches from the rope. Emil Todorow was run out but the Mystery Bowler, who is becoming a batting star, just got better and better, taking 14 off the final over. It was a shame that we ran out of overs as he would surely have made his first 50 for the club. Nomads fell well short of the target with 156 but, with a depleted side, this was not a bad effort. Even John acknowledged this.
West One had a fine array of talent and were worthy victors but their bowling star was Burton, who it is fair to say is not a bowler who would give many batsmen sleepless nights. He took 5 for 27 and, as John Crossland so aptly put it; "Nomads went for a Burton."
A pleasant day was rounded off at dusk as 3 Nomads (average alcohol intake; 2 pints) claimed to have seen a UFO, an orange diamond shape, take off from the nearby woods, ascend gently vertically, hover and then shoot off in overdrive and suddenly disappear. Of course, it is not the only time Nomads have encountered alien life forms - we have selected quite a few over the years. We did wonder if this had any connection with the non-appearance of Andrew West; did West know they were going to come looking for him to take him home? The strange thing is, I looked on the website "UK UFO Sightings" and there were several reports of a similar object being seen above Ewell on 15th August 2009, exactly one year previously. How scary is that? Maybe it is a birthday. Maybe it is Andrew West's birthday.
Man of the Match is quite difficult. Mark Bradshaw's innings was vital and Gopi's was very enjoyable but I am going for a controversial choice, Terry Bruce-Mills. With a severely depleted bowling line-up, Nomads' top bowlers really had to get wickets. Terry bowled well for his 1 for 23 but there were at least 3, possibly 4, drops off his bowling. There was also a ball that hung in the sky above mid-on which could be called a chance. It is not Bruce-Mills' fault that these chances were not taken and he could quite conceivably have had a five-fer, which could have made the game quite different. Fielder of the Day is also hard; Darwin, Bradshaw, Bruce-Mills and Lefebve all put in pretty much error-free rounds but I will award it to Gopi, who took arguably the best catch and was as busy and fast as usual.
WEST ONE - 210 for 6 from 40 overs
G. Pala 8-0-39-1
E. Todorow 8-0-18-0
T. Bruce-Mills 8-1-23-1
P. Pattiyil 6-0-43-0
Darwin 4-0-33-1
N. Lefebve 5-0-41-1
M. Milnes 1-0-7-2
CLAPHAM NOMADS - 156 for 8 from 40 overs
M. Bradshaw 37
M. Vyas 13
P. Pattiyil 8
M. Milnes 0
N. Lefebve 13
Darwin 10
G. Pala 41 not out
E. Todorow 1
T. Bruce-Mills 2
J. Crossland 0 not out
F.O.W. - 36, 64, 71, 89, 105, 126, 134, 142
Clapham Nomads lost by 54 runs
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment