Dulwich v Clapham Nomads - 7/9/14

7th September saw another trip to Dulwich Sports Ground, the Turney Road home of Dulwich cc's increasingly formidable Development XI.
Dulwich advertise themselves as South London's top club and it would be hard to argue with that - certainly if you are talking of SE and SW post codes only - their facilities and coaching are excellent.
Nomads won the toss and had a bowl, but once again learnt a lesson that is being drummed into us more and more often; it is almost impossible to dismiss a side full of well-coached youngsters on a good track.  Hassan bowled excellently and had at least 2 good chances missed off his bowling, while Emil turned in the best figures with 1 for 29 off his 7 overs.  It took the extra pace of Abbas to provide some kind of cutting edge, with 2 wickets for the young paceman.  3 run outs gave the scorebook a slightly healthier sheen from our point of view; John Crossland and Riaz combining for 2 of them.
Dulwich closed on 190 for 6.  Nomads had managed 198 against them last year but that was off 43 overs.  Our chances took a mortal blow at tea when Hassan had to leave for urgent family reasons.  Dulwich supremo John Lawrence sportingly allowed our 12th Man Adnan to bat in Hassan's place.
Mark Bradshaw concluded his fine comeback season with a well-crafted 32.  Mahesh Vyas provided some support with 7 and helped see off the openers.  Mahesh has done this several times this summer and has had a slightly better season than the averages will suggest.
The highlight of our knock was when Darwin, who had scored 193 runs in the previous 3 games since he was last out, made 10 here to bring up a kind of Double Century; possibly the first Nomad to achieve this feat.
Below Darwin, however, there was little support for Mark and a series of rash shots and soft dismissals caused a steady subsidence.  Dulwich had 2 excellent spinners who caused carnage.  When I started playing for Open University and Nomads 25 years ago, spinners/slow bowlers were a) fat, b) slow, c) drunk and d) unable to turn the ball.  I had 3 of the above characteristics myself.  These Dulwich guys, however, had none of the above.  They were well-coached and may have been watching video footage of Warne, Murali and even Swann and Panesar.  Almost cheating, that is.
Nomads ended on 104 all out.  How much difference did Hassan's absence make?  Well, Adnan scored 8, so Hassan would have needed to score 95 for us to win, all else being equal.
Man of the Match goes to Darwin for passing the 200 landmark (even though almost all the runs were scored in previous games.)  He also took 2 catches to claim Fielder of the Day as well, with Riaz a close second.  John Crossland had one of his rare off days behind the stumps and was quite downhearted, but I am so late in writing this report that I already know he bounced back well.

Dulwich  190 for 6 from 35 overs

Nomads' bowling

H. Khan  7-0-24-0
Sami  7-0-41-0
Abbas Khan  7-0-41-2
E. Todorow  7-0-29-1
R.Khan  3-0-14-0
Abdul Khan  4-0-35-0

Clapham Nomads  104 all out

M. Bradshaw  32
M. Vyas  7
R. Khan  0
Hamid  5
D. Gunewardena  10
Adnan Khan  8
Abdul Khan  13
Sami  10
E. Todorow (capt)  not out 1
J. Crossland (wkt)  0

Clapham Nomads lost by 86 runs.