Sunday 2nd XI vs Magdalen CC

Expectations were high on the back of a strong win against Godalming the week before. We arrived at the Met Police's ground in good time and made ourselves comfortable in the impressive club house before setting about some sophisticated fielding drills. Shortly after a couple of gentlemen took great joy in directing us to our pitch on the other side of the ground and more modest facilities (rather similar to wooden huts often seen at under 9 school matches with only enough room for kit bags and no room to swing a cat let alone bathroom or dinning facilities).

The pitch itself was a slow track but lightening compared to the outfield which looked more like the deep rough at Wentworth. With a timed game on the cards, Putney lost the toss and were sent into the field (mainly so the opposition could recover from the night before, assemble a team and put up the grand pavilion tent). It was a good contest between bat and ball with Putney keeping it tight thanks to Chris and Rags early on, before the batsmen began to move up through the gears and exert some pressure on our side. They were pegged back through a couple of wickets for Rags in a consistent spell (28/2), the second of which looked key as he got rid of their dominant batsmen.

Unfortunately their other main batsmen seemed to find his form after a shaky start and kept things ticking over for them. More steady bowling came from Paul and Suj but without any reward in the wickets column. However, some inspired captaincy appeared to change the game with Rich deciding to give Paul "one more over" as he looked close to a certain breakthrough, rather than being worried his slow medium dibbly dobblers would be bread and butter to their now in form batsmen, resulting in a flurry of wickets for Paul who ripped through their middle order with 3 quick wickets (47/3). Ben Fifield also collected 2 wickets (25/2) as a result of some good bowling with the occasional mystery ball. Suddenly, Putney looked in a strong position with the scoring rate having been relatively slow throughout and the gentleman's declaration time at 4:30pm inching ever closer. Some quick runs from their lower order helped Magdalen to a score of 155 for 7. This was probably about 30 more than had looked likely for a little while but still represented an intriguing chase.

Putney went in to bat and soon found the going harder than anticipated against one decent opening bowler in particular, resulting in us being 3-3 with thoughts of a successful run chase drifting away into the distance. Sudharma on his debut did well in re-building the innings, providing some resistance before being stumped but having shown some good technique and potential for the upcoming games. Rich and Suj carried on in the same fashion against one of the slowest seam attacks that ever graced a cricket pitch. That said we struggled to get them away with orthodox shots (excluding the large number of edges through 3rd slip from Rich's bat) hindered by the jungle outfield which meant that we only picked up singles for shots which might have attracted boundaries on other more glamorous settings. With hopes of a victory fading as time edged on Suj wisely shut up shop, much to the frustration of the opposition. Despite a couple of late wickets Suj stood firm until the end, securing a well deserved 50 not out at the close, to go with his steady bowling display and banterous fielding, even knocking off a couple of boundaries much to the fielding side's astonishment.

Hopefully this has gone some way to persuading them that if they are desperate for a result they need to consider a limited overs game! That said they were very sociable at the end and kindly agreed to give us some of their food in the pub afterwards (once the waitress had already put it on our table rather than theirs). All in all a decent days cricket in baltic conditions and some gutsy displays to dig out a result.

P.S Only one dropped catch this week too! ...excluding Rags' because apparently it was a tough one...

Bring on the next one, a home game at last!

Rich Wilson
May 25, 2012