21 July 2007

St Lukes A v Addiscombe (League) – Away

St Lukes:

James Somers (Capt)

Richard Somers

Hemant Joneja (W/k part)

Gothum Kandavelu

Mitsi Patel (W/k part)

Shoukat Rahman

Dieter Grutzner

Wasif Zamir

Gopi Desai

Evan Huyerman

Bob Gaddes

On a bright afternoon with the threat of showers in the air, the skipper lost the toss (so what’s new) and St Lukes were put in on a green looking wicket. Hemant (22) and Richard (18) opened and took every opportunity to push the scoring along in an opening stand of 42. Both were out within 8 runs of each other, Hemant being bowled (‘missed the line’) and Richard run out by an excellent direct hit from (near the) mid wicket boundary. James and Gothum came together to try to build the innings before the rains came down (for the first time) reducing the match to 40 overs. Addiscombe bowled tightly and runs were hard to come by; while both James (19) and Gothum (11) got in neither scored quickly. So at 94-4 the match looked to favour Addiscombe. But Mitsi (25) and Shoukat (29) once again pulled the innings together with a quick-fire stand of 39 – pity about the run out Mitsi!! The last four wickets added only 26 runs, which was a little disappointing, leaving St Lukes to finish on 159-9.

At least this made the maths easy: Addiscombe needed to score at exactly 4 an over.

Rain during the tea interval brought out more sawdust but was not enough to delay the re-start. Bob and Hemant bowled tightly but Chris Luffingham batted really well being particularly harsh on anything short. Hemant was almost unplayable and his 13-3 of 9 overs really put the pressure on. After 16 overs and with Addiscombe already behind the required run rate, the rains came again to reduce the target to 132 of 33 overs – effectively requiring Addiscombe to score at almost 6 an over. With Luffingham at the crease that looked a possibility and with skipper Chris Hasler they made a real effort to push the scoring along. However, when the skipper was run out (by Hemant) and Luffingham caught (by Hemant) off a skier from Evan’s bowling (finishing with 9-2 of 4 overs) the challenge became too much. Despite some late resistance from Mr Damaine – backing up his earlier bowling efforts – Addiscombe could only manage 101-7 leaving St Lukes to win on run rate (or 30 runs if you prefer – goodness knows what Duckworth Lewis would have made of it).

Man of the match – Hemant (runs, wickets, a run out and a catch – could be said to be Mr Greedy).