Cottenham Park was the setting on Sunday for one of the season's highlights; another Auld Firm Derby or El Clasico against the Energy Exiles. Nomads were worryingly short of bowling strength, especially after the non-selection of one of our longer-standing and most controversial bowlers - see last week's report re The Mobile Phone Incident. In connection with last week's events, there were rumours circulating that a lone gunman would be stalking Cottenham Park, taking potshots at Nomads players - had this been this case he would surely have been brought on to bowl. However, he didn't show - something to do with non-availability of second-hand golf balls in this part of Merton perhaps.
Skipper Emil Todorow had done well to announce a full team on Saturday night and, as 12th Man / Teaboy recovering from Night Shift, I arrived at 3.30 to find the Exiles on an imposing, though not apocalyptic, 157 in the 26th over. Only 1 wicket had fallen though and, had I known how this was going to fall, I would have set my alarm clock earlier. Emil Todorow had struck with one of his sadly increasingly rare Remarkable Deliveries which kick up to neck height at Slow-Medium off a good length. Few batsmen survive one of these and, if they do, they invariably struggle on as broken men; their technique shattered.
Exiles were far from shattered however. The ultra-consistent Drew Scott-Dawkins dominated early proceedings with 81. Craig Williams made 75. In the last 10 overs, the Away side cut loose at above 10 an over. A quick 38 from John Tither, who loves this ground on which he once scored 140, was the highlight late on. I only realised with 4 overs to go that Nomads were a man short but frankly I don't think an extra pair of 50-something legs would have made much difference. Nomads did manage 2 further wickets. Our notable bits were a good catch by Abdul and a boundary-saving stop by Emil, using his kneecap. Only the harshest of critics would suggest that this was, in fact, a thunderbolt Caught and Bowled chance. Hopefully Emil is fine. I'm sure he won't miss a match for something like that, even if he has to bring his kneecap in his kit bag next week.
Exiles closed on 259 for 3 off the full 35. Their highest score against Nomads and in the top 5 of opposition scores against us. They had hard hitters most of the way down their order and, had they kicked on even more, they could certainly have passed our highest conceded total of 275. 280 for 7 was mentioned as a possibility in their report.
Having Abdul at 8 indicated we had a decent batting line-up but we were missing Hassan and Riaz, our fastest-scoring middle order players, so scoring at 7.4 an over against a high-class Energy strikeforce was going to be somewhere between tough and impossible.
In the event, we kept up our reasonable batting form of recent weeks. Mark Bradshaw starred with an excellent 58, his second-highest in his 8 or 9 games for Clapham against his old club. He made 80 not out in 2009 but I actually think his batting was even better on Sunday than in the game 6 years ago, and against better bowling this time. Exiles put a special Bradshaw fielder in place (I won't say where this was in case any future opponents are reading this) and without that fielder he would probably have been up in the mid 70s.
Gul also batted well to share an opening stand with Mark of around 50. Our objectives were really a) To survive the the 35 overs and b) Hopefully to get within 100 runs of Exiles. From the first point of view, Mahesh and Prasanth both used up valuable time early on against excellent bowling.
There were some memorable bits of cricket in this match; admittedly mostly from the Exiles but enough from Nomads to make our afternoon worthwhile. Emil's wicket obviously, but also a cracking 10 by Gul off an over from Jibs, who responded with the fastest ball of the day, taken by keeper Chris Plume on the rise at head height, and then possibly the ball of the innings to clip Gul's bail.
A rival for ball of the innings was a clever slower ball from Simon Gundry. The big paceman dropped 5 mph and lured Darwin, who was looking set for a big score, into getting under the ball and conceding a catch.
Best moment of all was a quick one from Gundry just outside off which Bradshaw punched out for what seemed a certain 4 until Andy Wingfield, at Point, dived full length to parry the ball and restrict our boys to a quick single.
As ever, Cottenham was pretty decent to bat on, helped by short-ish boundaries on 3 sides, but it always gives the bowlers a hand too. Exiles' opener Terence Moynihan hit Gul early on with a genuine bouncer. Andy Wingfield, despited his professed dislike of bowling on this ground, returned fine figures of 1 for 9 off 6 overs. Simon Gundry inevitably chipped in with 3 wickets. The other bowlers were a handful too. Phil Ling has speeded up, while not swinging it quite as much, and used the pitch dangerously at times. Marcin Zielenewski used to be military medium, very accurate, but now has more of a box of tricks, tending to swerve it into the right-hander but jagging the odd Leg-Cutter away. He could be a potential Naren Patel in the making or even someone else (after one particularly deceptive ball, Mark, at Square Leg Umpire called out; "Did you learn that one from Emil, Martin?")
Nomads innings tailed offf a bit - a cracking straight 4 from Abdul was a late highlight - and Nick Lefebve and Emil Todorow found themselves together at 125 for 8 with 3 overs to go. There was a groundswell of opinion from the fielding side they would rather see No. 11 John Crossland bat but, boringly, the 2 veterans put Nomads' disintegrating self-respect - and their averages - ahead of entertainment and blocked it out to close on 127 for 8.
This was actually a type of total that Nomads recorded many times against Exiles in the past and it often ensured a close game - usually one of Exiles' famous last-over victories or, occasionally, a narrow Nomads win. However, this Exiles side has really cranked up a gear in the last 2 seasons. We did mention in the pub afterwards that at least we had lasted out the overs against their strongest possible bowling line-up, but it then emerged that their top wicket-taker this season had not been given a bowl. Oh dear. Anyway, Simon Gundry did acknowledge that this was one of Exiles' strongest-ever line-ups and would have beaten just about any of the teams they play regularly. However, for the return fixture in September, I think we will beef things up a bit and I have already selected the following team made up of present and past Nomads players.
Mark Bradshaw (Clapham Nomads) - joint-captain
Ben Fewson (Clapham Nomads and Yorkshire Under 19s) - wicket-keeper
Gaurang Vyas (Clapham Nomads)
Hassan Khan (Clapham Nomads, league cricket) - joint-captain
John Chance (Clapham Nomads, Bec Old Boys, Open University)
Wally Murdoch (Clapham Nomads, Sydney Grade cricket)
Riaz Khan (Clapham Nomads)
Rafi (Clapham Nomads, Merton, League cricket, Rafi cc of Lahore)
Patrick Blair (Clapham Nomads, Jamaican Parishes cricket)
Trent Copeland (Clapham Nomads, New South Wales and Australia)
Shailesh Bhatia (Clapham Nomads)
12th Man - Andrew West (Clapham Nomads, Mitcham Golf Course cc)
Joint Team Managers - Emil Todorow and Dave Hunter.
Only joking, regular players. We will be putting out the same line-up as usual. Book now to avoid disappointment.
P.S. - A measure of Exiles' dominance was the complete lack of Maiden
Overs in Nomads' bowling stint. I cannot remember this happening to us
before in a 35 over game.
John Crossland was on form with his scorebook comment; "A real close finish! Only 133 needed off the last over."
Energy Exiles 259 for 3 from 35 overs
Nomads' bowling;
A. Khan 7-0-41-0
Todorow 7-0-33-2
Gul 7-0-50-0
Qasim 7-0-48-0
Hamid 3-0-34-0
Pattiyil 3-0-35-1
Gunawardena 1-0-11-0
Clapham Nomads 127 for 8 from 35 overs
Bradshaw 58
Gul 16
M. Vyas 1
Pattiyil 4
Gunawardena 18
Qasim 8
Hamid 6
A. Khan 4
Lefebve 0 not out
Todorow 0 not out
Did not bat; Crossland.
F.O.W. - 46, 59, 70, 98, 106, 119, 119, 124
Nomads lost by 132 runs.
Man of the Match - Mark Bradshaw
Fielder of the Day - Abdul Khan
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