St Lukes V Selsdon – Saturday 12^th May 2006

St Lukes 1^st XI

Ed Hardwicke

Tim Haslehurst

Sri Narayanan

Craig Streets

Michael Krishna

Hemant Joneja (wk)

Karl Quinn

Richard Bent

Matthew Heynes

Adeel Hassany

Tim Blatt

After disposing of a poor Beddington Village team the previous week St Lukes faced a more formidable challenge against Selsdon who finished mid table in the 2^nd division in 2006.

The teams arrived at the ground to some rainy weather, it seemed it was going to be one of those on and off the pitch days. Somehow the weather held, and aside from a strong breeze, conditions were reasonable for the rest of play.

Captain Hardwicke lost the toss and St Lukes had the opposition batting. Dessie Heynes and Karl Quinn continued their good bowling from the previous week and had the opposition struggling at 4-18, picking up 2 wickets each. A nice catch was taken by Craig Streets and 2 regulation catches by Haslehurst in the ‘gully region’ were taken in that time. It’s nice when they come that slow to you, aren’t they Tim? The welcome return of Adeel soon saw him on the wicket taking list and with the good work done, St Lukes needed a wicket taker to clean up the tail. The Selsdon captain was the wicket that was needed, and in attempting to get off strike from Krishna he ran out his partner, Hardwicke doing the good work in the field. Krishna then picked up 2 wickets in his next over including the captain. Blatty then picked up the final wicket and it was a job well done by St Lukes. Seldson all out for 78. This was only going to be a formality!

Selsdon opened up their bowling with a spinner and they put pressure on St Lukes from the off. Hardwicke and Haslehurst started cautiously, but it wasn’t long before Haslehurst continued where he left off in the previous week, by hitting two nice ‘slogs’ into the deep. How long was this too last ? Not long and he was soon in the pavilion showering. This brought Sri to the wicket and with good wicket keeping he was soon out. Hardwicke apparently hit a couple of nice boundaries (not seen by the writer) and in his own words ‘played the shot of the day’ caressing the ball through the cover region. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to carry St Lukes home at that point and was out for 19. (that’s what it says in the scorebook). This started a batting collapse. Street’s leading edge back to the bowler for 9, Hemant LBW (the 2nd dubious decision by the Seldson umpire) first ball, and Krishna scoring an ugly, ugly duck. This brought Quinn and Richard Bent to the wicket. The pressure continued to mount, with St Lukes still needing 30 runs to win. These players then put there head down and with power hitting from Quinn and intelligent batting from Bent gave the St Lukes team a much deserved win.

So from 2 matches St Lukes are sitting on 40 points. A tough match against Putney is next week. This will prove the toughest test yet. We need to be focused from before we get to the ground. This is not going to be as easy as our past 2 matches.

Man of the Match: Karl Quinn

Fines (Tim “Baseball” Blatt please keep a note – monies from fines will be used at end of season do):

Krishna 50p – duck

Hemant 50p – duck

Adeel 50p – being very late (read the Charter!)