11 August 2007 St Lukes A v Battersea Ironsides A (League) – Away
St Lukes:
James Somers (Capt)
Richard Bent (w/k)
Richard Somers
Gothum Kandavelu
Mitsi Patel
Gopi Desai
Dieter Grutzner
Shoukat Rahman
Wasif Zamir
Evan Huyerman
Bob Gaddes
Another ‘crunch’ weekend with four of the top five playing each other. Both BI (third) and St Lukes (fifth) having lost their last two games.
The BI skipper admitted that his team were weak and they had an evening engagement so were looking to bat first and get it over with quickly. A bit of gamesmanship or realism? James lost the toss anyway and, sure enough, BI elected to bat on a good looking wicket with green outfield and wide boundaries (must have been marked out by a bowler). BI started hesitantly with some playing and missing – James decided to pack the on- side and ask his bowlers to keep a tight line. Sure enough the opener tried to pull a ball from Bob that wasn’t really there for it and James took (for him) an easy catch running backwards from short mid-on. The other opener quickly followed offering a low return catch to Bob that he just managed to get down to (9-2). BI tried to regroup and pushed the score along to 20 when the BI skipper decided to leave (another) one outside the line that came back and just took the top of off stump (20-3 - all to Bob). With no more added to the score, Evan got in on the act with Dieter taking a fine catch diving salmon-like to his left then and then bowling the new batsman (20-5). It didn’t get much better in the 15th over as Bob (having just been hit for a deserved 4) induced an inside edge on to the stumps. The next batsman hit his first, a rank bad ball, straight to Dieter (who doesn’t drop those); and the following batsman then skied his first ball down leg side and Richard B was able to run round and collect (a hat trick of variable quality). BI were reduced to 28-8 after only 15 overs with Bob (16-6) and Evan (12-2) the main beneficiaries. Harman and Godsland came together and batted sensibly for the 9th wicket adding 30 runs before Shoukat induced the former to prod forward a little too far and took the return catch. BI managed to take the score to 61 (and that precious batting point) before Gopi took the final wicket.
In reply, St Lukes lost Richard B to a loud LBW shout (the third in succession) that Evan decided would have hit, with only 8 on the board. But that was the only success for the BI bowlers; James (35 no) and Richard S (13 no) batted without any real concerns to take the score to 62-1 and victory. With Ottershaw (97 all out) comprehensively beaten by Merton (98-1), St Lukes move up to third.
Man of the match – Bob, bowled a good line and length and was supported by some fine fielding.