Clapham Nomads v Old Leagonians - 4/9/11

It was another new venue for Nomads; the John Ruskin Sports Ground, a secluded semi-rural location at the end of a winding track in the Croydon stockbroker belt of Shirley. The pitch played well and there were good changing rooms and a pair of football-style dugouts.
The end of Ramadan brought 4 genuine all-rounders back to the side but unfortunately not until almost 3 pm, by which time the visitors had had to reverse their original decision to bat, and allow the Nomads to take guard in order to get the game in motion.
The steady rain cleared as Mark Bradshaw and Prasanth Pattiyil strode out. This was Old Leagonians' first game of the season but opening bowlers England and Turner were anything but rusty; England keeping a pretty consistent line and length while the left-armer Turner produced occasional sharp lift and movement. An early bouncer caught Pattiyil's handle but the chance was put down behind the stumps. Scoring was sedate early on in the soggy conditions but Prasanth clipped Turner for a couple of 4s down to Fine Leg in the 6th over to boost the rate. Bradshaw began to take singles almost at will, clipping anything on leg down to Fine and cutting short balls either side of Point, while pushing over-pitched deliveries up to Long Off.
Another chance went down but Leagonians ground-fielding was impressive with a series of diving and sliding stops.
"Hannibal" Frewin and the Australian "Mace" Smythe took over with the latter bowler having trouble keeping his footing on the damp run-up. Prasanth skied a return catch in Frewin's second over but a stand of 44 was an excellent foundation with plenty of batting to come.
No. 3 Chris Kee pulled across to Smythe and chipped a catch to the in-field but this brought Hassan Khan out to join Mark Bradshaw. Hassan was fortunate to survive early on, twice giving difficult chances which went down. The all-rounder admitted he was stiff and tired, having scored an obscenely large amount of runs in a League match the previous day. Once Hassan was into his stride with a series a steers to Deep Point, our premier pair settled down for one of their marathon stands. The drenched outfield made rapid scoring difficult but no fewer than 38 singles were taken in a remorseless stand of 90 as they saw off bowlers Mullard and the useful Rob Lowndes (recorded by John as Rob Lounge.)
Shortly after someone in the Home Dugout had congratulated Hassan on his 50, the batsman fell - for 48 - caught and bowled by Turner, a deserved reward for the most dangerous bowler.
A breezy cameo 23 from Rashid Ahmed began with a second-ball 6 and ended with two 4s as the outfield dried, before he was bowled by Smythe.
Mark Bradshaw needed 5 off the final ball for his 50 but this is a landmark he has achieved many times (well over 50 times in fact) and he was content to push for a single to take Nomads up to 174 at the close.
It was good to have Hassan back to restore some edge to our attack but the opposition set out to take him on. The first ball was struck straight to Short Mid-Wicket who not only dropped the chance but then, with a near-suicidal single being scrambled, "speared" a shaky throw wide of the bowler's feet. Encouraged by this into thinking that Nomads might just be a slightly dodgy fielding side (hard to believe, I know) Leagonians' openers attempted another very sharp single...to Abdul Khan. Not altogether wise. 1 for 1.
This rather set the pattern with Leagonians adopting an attacking approach even when the ball was on the stumps which, in Hassan's overs, it generally was. Hassan took 3 for 15 and narrowly missed out on a hat-trick. There were 5 economical overs from Emil Todorow and 4 from Andrew West, and only a minor injury to West - a groin strain caused by the ball hitting his foot. More acute injury was to our eardrums from West's continuous commentary on life in general, and cricket and the weather in particular.
Wickets kept tumbling as Abdul Khan produced a fine spell of outswing bowling with a touch of Reverse Swing to take 4 for 11. The highlight was a spectacular one-handed diving caught and bowled.
Rashid Ahmed bowled an interesting spell of 65 mph wrist spin, setting his sights with a short-pitched googly, scattering the stumps with the flipper and then, after a flurry of leg-side hitting from Leagonians' Man of the Match Chris Turner, rounding off the victory with a rapid Leg Break to take out off stump.
This win takes us to 7 victories and 5 defeats with 2 games to play, so we are guaranteed, at worst, a 50% record and mid-table respectability.
Old Leagonians used this match to honour the memory of one of their players who passed away in his early 40s a couple of years ago. We were honoured to stage the game and apologise that only 7 of our team were there to observe the minute's silence that preceded play.
Since lateness had quite an influence on the match, Man of the Match can only be one of the players who was on time, so Mark Bradshaw gets the vote as he held the innings together with a valuable 46 not out, full of his favourite shots. Abdul was Fielder of the Day.
There is video footage of the match on Old Leagonians website at http://www.oldleagonianscc.co.uk/2011season.htm . This features Abdul's run out and caught and bowled and, most thrillingly, footage of Andrew West bowling and chasing the ball. Any offers of television or film work must go via his agent John Crossland.

Clapham Nomads 174 for 4 from 30 overs

M. Bradshaw 46 not out
P. Pattiyil 24
C. Kee 0
H. Khan 48
R. Ahmed 23
A. Khan 3 not out

F.O.W. - 44, 46, 136, 170

Old Leagonians 84 from 23.5 overs

H. Khan 5-0-15-3
E. Todorow 5-1-17-0
A. West 4-1-12-0
A. Khan 5-0-11-4
R. Ahmed 2.5-0-11-2
N. Lefebve 2-0-14-0

Clapham Nomads won by 90 runs