TCC 3’s v. Harrow
CC 3’s (Home)– Saturday 5th July – Colts Make their Mark
The weather forecast for the visit of fourth
place Harrow
to Broom Road
was not great but we did not see a drop of rain in the whole game as
it turned out. Losing three of our original selection on Thursday
evening the 3’s drafted in under-17 colts Julian Hornby and Oliver
George along with Matt Freeman and still looked strong on paper.
Parker for once managed to lose the toss and was not surprised when
the Harrow skipper, Boyd Elkins,
invited Twickenham into bat.
Julian and Ollie had been selected as opening
bats in the absence of Blunden (lost to the 2’s), Campbell
(unavailable) and Burgess (holidaying) and certainly did not look
out of place as they started confidently. Our opponents were having
to play five colts in their line-up and it soon became evident that
the missing regulars for Harrow
must have been mainly bowlers. The extras column was keeping pace
with the batsmen who picked off the bowling almost at will in the
early stages. Hornby (48) is a particularly fine prospect and (fresh
from scoring 85 for the colts the previous evening) he plundered the
lion’s share of the early runs. Ollie George (28), who still
qualifies for our under-15’s, supported well, but was the first to
fall in the 21st over with the score on 91 – a great base
from which to launch an onslaught. However, Jimmy Liebenberg (20)
has been finding it difficult to bat at
Broom Road
this season, and when Hornby played on just short of his deserved
fifty Agha Shahid joined him at the crease. Jimmy was out caught
with the score at 141 for 3 after 32 overs. David Brady and Agha
then tore into the flagging attack as Harrow tried eight different bowlers in an attempt to find
one who could show some consistency. But Dave (63n.o.) and Agha (66)
smashed their way out of trouble and took the score to 223 off 42
overs before the next wicket fell. A belligerent 18 runs from Howard
McCann allowed Brady’s fine hitting to continue until Parker called
a halt at the end of the 51st over with the score having
reached 297 for 6. Leaving ourselves 49 overs to dismiss the
opposition some might have thought it rash to bat on so long but
Parker was happy to “back his bowlers” in the knowledge that his
four main strike bowlers of the season were playing today.
So tea was then taken between innings and this
turned out to be the highlight of the day for
Harrow.
Phil Biggs started at the
Broom Road End and was more than happy to
remove Kirman’s middle stump with the second ball of the first over.
This prompted Junior McKetty at the other end for
Harrow
into deciding that if the oppo were to have any chance at all then
he would probably have to face every ball!! And to his
credit, he managed to largely achieve this by smashing 48 of the
next 60 runs scored. However, in the meantime,
Harrow
lost three more wickets at the other end as Biggsy picked up
Summersell (6), Liebenberg bowled Makai 3) and K.Patel failed to
ground his bat and found himself run out by McCann with a direct hit
from mid-off for nought. Jimmy
Liebenberg(8o-2w-41r) then ended McKetty’s resistance with a caught
and bowled from a delivery he should have left well alone with the
score at 60 for 5 off 12 overs. The inexperience of the
Harrow batters was there for all to see as Agha Shahid
was then introduced to the attack. It was “only a matter of time” as
Agha clean bowled A.Patel 5) and Biggsy finally found someone in the
field who could catch one off his fine spell of bowling which ended
(11o-1m-3w-38r) with Mark Smith taking over at his end. The
lower order really didn’t put up any resistance to the bowling and
it was Smithy who finished them off having Elkins caught at deepish
mid-off by Howard McCann with the score 115 all out after 28.5 overs
– A T’s win by 182 runs. A brilliant all-round effort of batting,
bowling and fielding (Ollie George capping his day with a direct hit
run-out of Harrow’s number 9 bat from square leg), and of course
chirping, (where would we be without Trippers driving us forward
from behind the stumps in his inimitable bespectacled fashion) by
the whole team as another ten points were bagged and keeping us
firmly at the top of the table at the halfway stage of the season.
Congratulations boys.
It was interesting to note that Wembley have
kept up the pressure on us this week by winning against Hornsey,
whose second consecutive defeat has seen them slip thirteen points
behind us in 3rd place. We now enjoy three more home
games out of our next four in the League and with a 100% record at Broom Road we must
take a firm stranglehold on one of the promotion places.
C’mon the T’s.
Phil Parker.
