Scudding showers interspersed with Urdu chat
Due to the bank holiday, half-term break and Naz captaining the opposition, a depleted Village CC turned up at Chiswick House to take on the Teesras.
Village bowled first with Bilal and Ramesh taking the new ball. Both proceeded to keep it very tidy as the self-proclaimed 20/20 style batsmen of the Teesras seemed more concerned with not getting out to Bilal than pushing the scoreboard along. With the openers back in the hutch, the skipper turned to canny middle over bowler Bosh and left-armer Anupam Sharma to keep a lid on proceedings. As the batsmen started to open their shoulders a bit more, tight bowling was rewarded as the man from the Indo-Gangetic Plain Anupam ripped through the middle order to leave the Teesras 69-5 at drinks. this brough the dangerous Rohit Sharma to the crease as he sought to warm up for the Champions Trophy. A few dropped catches and some heavy hitting brought the Teesras back into the game as Rohit and number 9 Sheikh put on a sizeable stand before Bilal and Ramesh were brought back to close out the innings, dismiss both the danger men and leave Naz (also determined not to get out to Bilal) to scratch his way to 11*. The Teesras finished on an impressive 190-9 with wickets shared between Bilal, Ramesh, Bosh, Anupam and Cressey, although Klav was unfortunate to miss out on wickets as he bowled tightly to go at just over 3 runs per over at the business end of the innings.
In reply the Village’s innings got off to a good start against a strong bowling line-up. Bosh flicked off his legs beautifully to lose the ball in the characteristic Chiswick House thicket and Nish punished anything outside off-stump to the point boundary underneath the tree. Wickets did however, start to fall and with the Village only having 9 players, smiling opposition captain agreed to let Bilal bat twice and lend the Village opener Abbas who wasn’t going to be able to play again this season. This saw Bilal promoted to number 4 and he proceeded to smash a quickfire 17 before being triggered as he tried to dismiss his first ball from Naz back towards Gunnersbury. Leg-spinner Troja was promoted to number 5 and he and skipper Cressey began to rebuild with a rain-disrupted partnership before the captain skied a full toss to Naz at mid-wicket. After this the collapse resumed with Bilal failing to add to his first innings and Teesra Abbas also dismissed for a duck to leave Village 158 all out and short by 32 runs.
With 9 players it was a valiant effort and special thanks go to Anupam for playing and bowling well through injury. Thanks also to Naz for accommodating our 9 players by letting people bat twice and lending us fielders. Teesras are an impressive bowling line-up but on balance we probably let them get 40-50 too many with the bat as dropped catches and a weakened bowling line-up saw the Village struggled to maintain control throughout the full 40 overs.
Also 2 weeks in a row to see Naz’s Ferrari. #therealstreak
