Surrey Seamers v St Lukes – Saturday 03^rd June 2006

St Lukes 1^st XI

Ed Hardwicke

Tim Craig

Fawad Omer

Hemant Joneja

Tim Blatt

Tim Haslehurst

Karl Quinn

Matthew Haynes

Michael Krishna

Ahmed Hassan

Matthew

The Match:

At last a warm sunny summers day joined us for our fourth outing of the season, and it was a strong and confident St Lukes side that arrived at their sporting local rivals.

The first victory of the game went Surrey Seamers as another toss was lost and unfortunately they made the correct decision and chose to bat on a pitch that only looked likely to get slower as the day progressed and ball got older. A very strong and disciplined St Lukes fielding display restricted the home side to a gettable 149 – 8. All catches were taken to support some great spells of bowling. The only regret that was felt as St Lukes left the field was the ease with which the away side allowed their strangle hold to release with 4 overs to go, giving them an easy and very handy additional 30 runs.

St Lukes made a comfortable and progressive start to the run chase with last season’s opposition bowling threat being knocked out of the attack quickly. However, it was after 30 odd was on the board when the 1^st wicket fell and there begun the nervy progression towards the finish line. A steady but slow middle section to the St Lukes innings then occurred, not helped by the slow pitch and outfield, as well as some very disciplined bowling by the Surrey Seamers, leaving approx 50 from the last 10 overs. With wickets still in hand the target remained achievable, with a mini partnership between Karl and Michael keeping up the progress. But with wickets starting to fall we were soon 9 down requiring 7 from the final 2 balls. And there St Lukes’ pursuit ended, with Dessie some what unlucky to find the fielder on the deep mid wicket boundary (cow), ensuring a victory for St Lukes friendly neighbours.

Shot of the day:

Karl – find in the garden with the flick over long on.

Catch of the day:

Blatty – a catch or wear it effort of his own bowling

Female Icon of the day:

Michael – he has now played two innings and on both occasions has required a runner; do I need to say anymore

Man of the Match (and winner of a solar garden lamp – you’d all left for the prize giving conducted by TB):

Des – a fine bowling performance, keeping his discipline, not trying anything unnecessary and letting the length he bowled and the pitch do the work. Great stuff and not one boundary was hit off his bowling. Plus a 3’fer I think.

Lessons Learnt:

There are many points that you can look back on when you lose a game by such a small margin but after some reflection I think 2 areas stand out.

1) We need to play for the full 45 overs we are in the field and close off the opposition’s innings more ruthlessly, especially in the last 5 to 10 overs of their innings.

2) The importance of keeping the score board ticking over with 1 & 2s. I believe that if we done this better throughout our innings and even in the last few overs of our innings we would have won this game.