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TCC 3’s v.
Brentham CC 3’s – Saturday 14th July
T’s welcomed
Brentham to Broom Road on a warm and humid day quite in contrast to
the first day of the league season at the Wilf Slack Ground. Phil
Parker was keen to win this toss above all others because of the
team’s impressive chase down of 237 the previous week. However, this
week it was not to be and it was the opposing captain who won the
toss and decided to bowl first. The opening exchanges were quite an
intriguing battle as the very young Brentham opening attack
struggled to make an impression on the very “experienced” opening
T’s pairing – Don Campbell and Colin Blunden. Campbell in
particular, looked in good form early on whereas Colin took his time
getting going, but the score still progressed in excess of four runs
per over as the time ticked by. Campbell was lucky on a couple of
occasions in the first ten overs as a couple of sharp catching
chances were put down in the field and Blunden also joined the party
with a thickish outside edge which perfectly bisected the slips. But
after those first ten overs the score had reached 52-0 and both
batsmen looked set. Blunden was now beginning to outscore Campbell
with some fine pulling and driving down the wicket. With the score
at 99-0 in the 19th over “the Don”(34) ended his own
innings by “walking” after a faint tickle was caught behind with
Blunden having just passed his first league 50 of the season. It was
not to be the end of Don Campbell’s day though – far from it.
Steve Van
Niekerk then joined Colin at the wicket. Under strict orders to keep
his head down the Natal boy was in no mood to follow team orders. He
immediately picked up where he left off after last week’s fifty and
set about dismantling the bowling with big shots all around the
wicket. The drinks break passed with the score at 136-1 after 25
overs. The “pad rash” was beginning to set in on the boundary edge
as Travis and new boy Nitin Parab discussed what they were going to
do with the bowling IF they got the chance, and further down the
order Phil Parker and Mark Smith wondered whether they were going to
get in at all. Speculation as to the likely required target score
was suggesting that 300 was not beyond the realms of possibility.
Blunden and Van Niekerk continued to gather runs at will on the
benign surface until Steve(61) mis-timed another attempted bludgeon
to the boundary and was well caught by Jones with a running-in
catch( 183-2 off 34). T’s were now targeting another 100 runs to
declare after as little as 45 overs. Travis then joined Blunden who
was 70 not out by this stage. In his usual fashion 5 fours and a six
later Travis was stumped for 28 with the score at 232-3 off 41.
Debutant Nitin Parab came in at 5 and after a slow start, three well
struck boundaries showed why he had been making lots of runs for the
4’s and Sunday teams. But Nitin (16) holed out with the scoring rate
slowing 266-4 off 46 bringing skipper Parker to the wicket with the
vital secret that Bluden was now 99 not out. The secret was safe and
as Colin despatched another loose delivery to the boundary a
well-deserved battling century was reached to the applause of
everyone at the ground. Parker saw no sense in cutting into our
bowling time by staying at the crease much longer and called a halt
to proceedings at 278-4 after 48 overs (Blunden 110 not out). After
tea the oppo would get 52 overs for their run chase, more
importantly, our bowlers would have plenty of time and runs to play
with in their efforts to get us our second win in a row.
However, like
in the previous match between these two sides, the expected run
chase never materialised. The T’s were at a loss to understand why a
team would come simply to defend one league point. It is hardly
worth writing about a batting line-up which singularly showed no
appetite to make a game of it. The six T’s bowlers tried manfully to
coax the Brentham batsmen out of their defensive stance but until
the seventeenth over with the score at an unimpressive 47-0 there
had hardly been a shot “played in anger”. Even Gerry Brennan must
have been getting bored by now because his finger did the talking as
Wilson (the “stone-waller” from the first match) was adjudged LBW
and had to walk this time (he had been very reluctant to walk when
he was clearly out last time!). Maybe now the shackles could come
off the Brentham innings? No - quite the opposite.
In the end a
good knock by opener N Patel yielded 67 runs but many of those runs
came at a time when the T’s introduced slow bowling in attempt to
“buy” wickets and perhaps bring some spark to the game. There were
three memorable highlights in the otherwise-undistinguished Brentham
reply. The first was the amazing “diving” catch taken by last year’s
returning skipper James(Les)Richards at mid-wicket followed by his
dropping of the biggest dolly of the season at first slip – good to
have you back Les. Secondly, the remarkable exploits of Don Campbell
in the field. He (enjoyed?) one of those days when almost every
loose opposition shot seemed to pass by where Don was supposed to be
fielding, leading to the skipper attributing Don with a new nickname
of “Chevvy” (Chase). Finally, the ten overs bowled by Mark Smith at
the death from the River End were both accurate and at times hostile
leading to well-deserved final figures of 10o-3m-2w-35r. Mark’s
“never say die” attitude kept the boys fighting to the end .
Brentham finished at 195-6 to no great credit. The boys were
disappointed and frustrated with the winning draw result (4 Points)
to Brentham’s one point. The only consolation being that those
points have seen us leapfrog both Brentham and North Middlesex (next
week’s opponents) and move into fifth place in the league. Our next
“targets” are Harrow who are just two points ahead of us.
Phil Parker. |
