St Lukes A v Norbury (Away) Friendly (35 overs)

7 July 2007

Team: Mitsi Patel (Capt & w/k for part), Richard Somers, Mark Boulton, Wasif Zamir, Dieter Grutzner (w/k part), Ven Krishnamurthy, Shoks Patel, Neil Patel, Gopi Desai, Arun Patel, Bob Gaddes.

On a bright and sunny, if a little windy, afternoon Mitsi took on the captaincy called the toss (wrong again) - Norbury elected to bat on what looked a good pitch but the less said about the outfield the better.

Bob and Shoks opened the bowling - the old man bowling against the wind (how does he do it). There was immediate reward for St Lukes in the first over as Wasif took a fine catch off Bob's bowling to send the opener back. More was to follow in Bob's second over, as he was struch for six and then a four before the batsman played all around a straight one (one of the few) and lost his middle stump. Shoks then got in on the action sending back the other opener plumb LBW. The skipper shared round the bowling and the wickets with Dieter coming on to take a couple and Shoks taking a skyer off Gopi's bowling. With Norbury at 100-6 St Lukes looked to be in control but the opposition had batting in depth and any loose bowling was punished very effectively. A stand of 74 for the seventh wicket in very quick time switched the balance of power towards Norbury and while Bob took another couple of wickets at the death - just avoiding a hat trick and a 'five-for' - a last wicket stand of 34 inlcuding 3x6 of Mitsi's final over (3 overs for 26 - ouch!) set an imposing target of 216.

Bob finished with 35-4 and Dieter a creditable 27-2. Arun took a couple of blinding catched on what was an excellant debut.

In reply, St Lukes never quite had the firepower to put Norbury under sustained pressure. Richard led the charge starting his innings with a 'five' - one run and 4 overthrows, which the umpire (Mitsi) had fun trying to signal. Richard didn't quite get to that half century being caught pushing for runs on 46. Dieter played classically for his 10 before being out caught one handed in the gully with the fielder leaping to his left (other weeks he would have got away with that). Ven went for boundries (6 and 2x4) in his brief innings of 18 and Gopi added a nice 19 at the end before Arun (14 not out) and Bob (1 not out) saw the overs out. St Lukes 149-9 included no less that 33 extras (21 wides - well if the opposition were going to give them so were we).

While a bit of a miss-match the game was played in a good spirit and the opposition were kind enough to congratulate all the St Lukes players for their efforts after the match.

Man of the Match - Richard Somers