Bish, bash, bosh as
Borain bludgeons Ts to victory
Twickenham II
249-5 G. Borain 117no, T. Guy 59
Wembley II
217 a/o
A. Mohanlal 51, S. S. Dhaliwal 6-74, S. Amos 2-71
A belligerent 117no from Garth Borain,
plus 6-64 from the enigmatic Sati Singh Dhaliwal, saw Twickenham
register 10 points in an entertaining encounter at Wembley’s Vale
Farm ground. Tom Guy’s 59 provided the perfect foil for
Borain’s blitz, the big
Normally Twickenham’s second string
like to give themselves a good 45 minutes to warm up and get loose
prior to taking the field. North-West London’s traffic saw
to it that this was not to be the case on 10th July,
with most of the Twickenham players only managing to get to the
ground barely 15 minutes before the start time. Skipper Dan
Hough nonetheless managed to break the habit of what almost
appears to be a lifetime in winning the toss and he had little
hesitation in opting to bat. 30C heat and a Wembley track,
so the consensus had it, that is better to bat on earlier in the
day saw to that.
Pete Richards and Sati Dhaliwal
subsequently got things up and running, although Dhaliwal’s stay
at the crease was all too brief, Mohanlal catching him nicely at
point off Maxwell with just 1 on the board. Wembley, despite
missing their star opening bowler, Dave Pocock, from the first
game between the sides back in May, had their tails up.
Richards and number three Tom Guy found themselves with little
option but to dig in and take the strain. And this they did,
blocking the good balls and restricting themselves to waiting for
the rank long hop. In due course more and more of them
appeared, prompting Richards to up the ante and slap a couple of
short deliveries right back past the bowler. 10-1 off 7
became 40-1 off 13 as things slowly moved forward.
Guy was less fluent, but no less
effective and the Ts’ innings began to take decent shape.
The departure of Richards (47 in 54 balls), thanks to a very sharp
leg side stumping by Wembley skipper John Gale, caused something
of a wobble, as Matt Bendelow departed to an even better stumping
and Richie Brewin (9) miscued one straight to cover. A
little bit of retrenching was subsequently on the cards.
Sure enough, Guy dug in whilst number six Borain had a general
look at proceedings. Guy rarely looked in top notch nick,
but he accumulated nicely and the Ts again began to make headway.
Borain, meanwhile, played with much more freedom, and it wasn’t
long before the total was heading up and beyond 150. Both
players helped themselves to half centuries, Guy being the
tortoise (110 balls) and Borain the hare (41 balls) as the Ts’
total began to take on menacing proportions. Guy’s departure
(59 off 119) did little to slow the rate down, as Borain began
really racing through the gears. Indeed, it wasn’t long
before he was lofting straight sixes for fun and, despite pulling
a muscle in his backside, he whizzed passed 100 (76 balls); it was
a super knock, and a century well-deserved. Ashley Gray,
meanwhile, struggled somewhat to get the ball away, but positive
running and sensible last gasp hitting ultimately saw the Ts call
a halt with the scores on 249 and Borain on 117no (83 balls).
The tea was a real delight to behold.
Not only were there scones, jam AND cream (and for the second week
running!), but there was also a wide variety of cakes and some
chunky sandwiches. After a little discussion in the tea room
(centring mainly on whether there was enough ‘je ne sais quou’ to
merit a straight A rating), the Ts ultimately opted for an A-
minus on the Hendo-tea-o-meter; a very solid effort indeed, plenty
to be recommended, and one of the best teas seen on the circuit
thus far.
Skipper Hough opted to start with pace
(Ryan Combrinck) from one end and spin (Sati Dhaliwal) from the
other. And almost immediately this paid dividends, with
Prinay Patel spewing one up to a sprawling Dan Hough at forward
short leg. The second wicket, however, took a bit more time
in coming, as the enigmatic Matt Peet, batting at three, drove
freely and dealt happily with all that the Ts’ slip cordon could
throw at him. But, just as he was looking to settle in for
bed and breakfast, Ashley Gray came to the party, prompting the
big Aussie to feather a straightforward catch behind for 28.
The Wembley top order was nonetheless
proving hard to dislodge, and as the overs went by the game
drifted more and more in to the balance. Opener Akash
Mohanlal rode his luck a bit, but he was nonetheless decent value
for his half century, whilst Mohammed Merali (batting at four)
illustrated both that he could force well off the back foot and
sweep. The Ts needed a breakthrough, and, as the score moved
in to the 120s, reasonably quickly too. Post-drinks Hough
opted to try and squeeze the runs a little, bringing in a few of
the soldiers in the hope that the Wembley batters would try and
hit out. And, sure enough, and as he has done on a number of
occasions already this season, Stuy Amos duly tweaked and twirled
his way to a couple of very handy dismissals; Jawid Dadarkar
taking an excellent catch on the mid-wicket boundary and Ashley
Gray pouching one at deep extra cover. Once again the Ts
were making progress.
Wembley, to their credit, decided to
live by the sword, and despite the fact that wickets kept falling
they never stopped going for the total. But whilst it was
Amos who made the crucial double breakthrough, it was Sati
Dhaliwal who ultimately proved the match-winner. He varied
his pace and bowled a variety of offies and leggies, picking up
wickets at regular intervals. A couple of chances went down,
but Wembley nonetheless slipped form 124-2 to 176-8 in pretty
quick time.
Whilst the Ts were very much on top at
this stage, the number 8, Maxwell, clearly believed that the game
was still there for Wembley to win. He whacked and hacked
with conviction, and before the Ts really had time to blink he was
up and in to the 30s. Maxwell’s batting wasn’t pretty, and
his running was decidedly kamikaze, but he was effective and with
Wembley now less then 40 runs adrift it became clear that this
could be a tight finish.
Once again, however, Dhaliwal stood up
to be counted, as number 10 Vinod Srinivasan departed thanks to a
nicely taken catch by Tom Guy in the gulley. Wembley needed
39 to win, whilst Twickenham needed one wicket. Number 11
Arjan, who had been the pick of the Wembley bowlers earlier in the
day, showed that he was capable of sticking around, the big
question was now would Maxwell be able to bludgeon 30 odd from the
other end. He might have been able to – but his suicidal
running ultimately got the better of him as, in trying to nick a
quick single off Dhaliwal, he underestimated the Bendelow arm;
Richie Brewin gleefully took the ball, whipped off the bails, and
Arjan was run out with Wembley still 32 runs short.
All in all this was a super game of
cricket with both sides attempting to be positive all the way
through. Ultimately Wembley came out second, but this wasn’t
for the lack of trying. Garth Borain’s magnificent debut
century for the Ts (and his seventh overall) was a sight to
behold, but Tom Guy’s 59 also did much to set the base from which
Dhaliwal and Amos could keep chipping away. Next week sees
the Ts return to the Green after a couple of weeks on the road
when they entertain Harrow St Mary’s.