Dulwich v Clapham Nomads - 22/5/11

I'll keep it quite brief - a relief to everyone - as it is 6 days now since the match and I don't have the scorebook at the moment. (Ill fill in the gaps later.)
A well-paced opening stand of 74 between Mark Bradshaw (38) and Mahesh Vyas (39) set up an impressive Nomads total. Cautious at first on a green strip against some accurate bowling, they accelerated at around the 10-over mark and built a strong platform for our aggressive middle order.
Another excellent knock from Jim Joyce, if anything scoring even more freely than last week. It was almost a surprise when he was out for 55. His 3rd wicket stand of 87 in excellent time with Hassan Khan (34) was the highlight of Nomads' innings and was probably the deciding factor as no Dulwich player was able to keep up that rate of scoring for an extended period. Some good hits from Sumith Prasanna and Riaz Khan took us up to 211 for 6 from 40 overs. Not a bad haul against a decent bowling attack. The pitch played pretty well throughout. For me the pick of the Dulwich bowlers was the 15-year-old spinner Edwards who was accurate and maintained this even when he got a bit of tap towards the end of his spell. Dulwich have a production line of these promising youngsters and it would be nice to think that some of them will go on to play for Dulwich Firsts or even Surrey.
Once again, our bowling appeared to lack a bit of depth but the target of 212 was well in excess of anything Dulwich have achieved against us so we had high hopes. We had planned to show no emotion whatsoever at the fall of the first wicket (to wind up John Crossland, who had berated his neighbour at slip, Mahesh, the previous week for failing to hail a greet a catch vociferously) but in the end we forgot ourselves in the excitement of securing an early breakthough. After this setback, Dulwich played themselves back into contention with an excellent stand of 70 between Persaud and Leather. This pair played a series of fine shots, particularly Leather who was hard to pin down. Persaud was dropped in the 20s and for a brief period this looked as if it might be costly. Leather made 50 in good time and, while Dulwich never quite managed to really beat down the required rate, these 2 began to look dangerous. The vital wicket of Leather was secured by Abdul and, though Persaud also went on to 50, the big shots dried up and the required rate began to approach 8.
Although not quite at his best with the ball, Emil Todorow shuffled his bowling options cleverly and rather frequently - it was almost worth the 8:40 finish to watch a master tactician in action. Hassan and Riaz bowled excellent economical spells and Abdul and Sumith also kept the pressure on. Wickets tumbled as the asking rate rose. Just as victory seemed beyond Dulwich with around 35 needed off 2 overs, Ford arrived at the crease and casually lifted a Jim Joyce delivery clean out of the ground. He followed this up with a text-book 4 and it was something of a relief when Joyce yorked his partner shortly after to wrap up a 20-run victory. Dulwich supremo John Lawrence confirmed afterwards that it was only Ford's second game for the club and, had a bit more been known about him, he would have batted higher. This just might have made the outcome rather different.
Man of the Match was Jim Joyce again for another fine and entertaining knock. He was also the skipper's pick for Fielder of the Day. Plenty of other good performances; Mark Bradshaw continued his sound batting form and fielded well with one spectacular diving flick-back right on the rope. Hassan Khan and Abdul Khan both did plenty for the team and Riaz Khan was possibly the pick of the bowlers. Finally, John Crossland was not about to start conceding byes just because he had done a 40-mile charity bike ride that morning.

Clapham Nomads 211 for 6 from 40 overs

Bradshaw 38
Vyas 39
Joyce 55
H. Khan 34
Darwin 0
Prasanna 5 not out
A. Khan 4
R. Khan 8 not out

F.O.W. - 74, 104, 191, 192, 195, 203

Dulwich - 190 for 5 from 40 overs

R. Khan - 8-2-22-1
Todorow - 8-1-51-0
A. Khan - 8-1-41-1
Prasanna - 5-0-21-1
Joyce - 2-0-19-1
Darwin - 1-0-4-0
H. Khan - 8-1-29-0

Nomads won by 21 runs