There were two wins and three defeats for the Twickenham sides on the final day of the 2021 campaign. The fours finished their promotion season with a 34 run victory at Harrow Town IVs and the threes beat the same club’s threes by four wickets.

The fives were involved in a thriller at Broom Road, losing by one wicket to West Harrow III. The ones and twos had less to write home about. The firsts lost by 78 runs at newly crowned champions Crouch End whilst the twos suffered the agony of final day relegation when they lost by 5 wickets to Ealing.

Twos suffer last day blues
The big fixture of the weekend was undoubtedly on Twickenham Green. As the final day dawned, no fewer than five teams were involved in the scramble to stay in the top flight. As news came through that Stanmore were beating Hampstead and Highgate were beating Richmond, it became clear that if Twickenham wanted to stay up then they needed to beat Ealing.

Calum Goldthorp (54) and Nikhil Nomula (57) set the Ts up pretty well, although Alex Fell (1-26 off 9) also bowled admirably for Ealing. 226 seemed a decent enough total.

The Ts nonetheless struggled to get it right in the field and Ealing, helped by some smart running and equipped with lots of positive intent, ultimately got home with something to spare. Harjot Rajasansir (68) and Ciaran O’Malley (43) led the way.

Relegation’s never fun, but we’ve been here and bounced back before. Planning starts now to repeat that in 2022.

Taylor and Dhev ease the threes home
The threes have had a tough old campaign. They’ve effectively played 15 away games and that’s never the best for forging a strong team identity.

Skipper Connor Finney has nonetheless done all he possibly could to keep the show on the road and he’ll have been pleased that his side ended the season positively. The threes beat Harrow Town convincingly and with that nudge above Uxbridge into 8th place.

Harrow Town put 168 on the board and, at North Acton Playing Fields, that was felt by many to be a decent score. The evergreen Dan Taylor was handed the new ball and he helped himself to 2-27 off 12. A crane has already been ordered to help him get out of bed on Sunday morning. Hamish Johnston (2-25) again bowled admirably, as did the team’s talisman, Sam Cliffe (4-35).

Prabhu Dhev took inspiration from the Indian top order at the Oval. He opened up, took his time and batted through the innings. His 73no was a joy to behold. For most of the way Taylor (37) offered admirable support.

Great stuff from the threes.

Fours end on a high
The fours continued their excellent run by taking home 10 points from Rayner’s Lane.

Oliver Prescott-Brann was the star of the batting show scoring an excellent 60 not out. If nothing else, 2021 has shown that the Ts’ youth network really is beginning to bear fruit. Only two of the other fourth XI batters *didn’t* get into double figures; evidence that this really was a team batting effort. Hiran Dissanayake (36) and Jonty Hunt (22) were top scorers there.

Mehran Iqbal took two wickets at the top of the order, ending the campaign with 45 poles. Impressive stuff. Hinay Dassani also took a couple, but it was Dave Jones – not fully fit but still keen to do a job – who really came to the party. 4-6 is good in anyone’s book.

The win leaves the fours 11 points ahead of Hampstead and safely in a promotion slot. They look forward to plying their trade in Division 2 of the third tier in 2022.

5s in a thriller at Broom Road
The fifths lost, but they did so narrowly in what turned into a fantastic game of cricket.

The Ts batted first and put 163 on the board. Pete Burke (19), Zafar Ali (15) and Frankie Lingeman (21) started things off nicely, before Mike Richardson added 26 at the end. The less said about skipper Harmeet Singh’s first baller the better.

Akash Patel (31) and particularly Pranav Chokshi (56) looked as if they were batting the Ts out of the game, but then the TCC youth brigade came to the party. 14 year old Tom Hopkins chipped in with 2-29 but it was fellow 14 year old Tom Stanton who really caught the eye.

Stanton took three wickets in his last over (including one off the final ball that he bowled) to claim his first five wicket haul in senior cricket (5-21). That left West Harrow eight down with 40 runs needed.

The calamitous (from a West Harrow perspective) run out of Chokshi left the Ts needing one wicket and the visitors 25 runs. Could they pull it off? The Ts chucked the kitchen sink at West Harrow, but somehow the last pair did it. Every respect to them, and a super way of ending both sides’ campaigns.

Ones come off second best at Crouch End
The ones ended their season in the middle of a party. Crouch End have been very impressive this season and they eased past Carlos Nunes’s men to secure the MCCL title. Well done to Hiren Desai and his side.

Crouch End posted 180 on a challenging track, Atharva Prasad (65 off 71) was the stand out performer with the bat and the ageless Parminder Singh (6-17) led the way with the ball. Patrick Dixon (2-53) also chipped in nicely.

In reply the Ts were quickly in trouble as 28-4 became 43-6. Ben Leale-Green was the soul beacon of sanctity, remaining 38no (off 60) at the end, Rashid Mullazahdah and Parminder Singh did at least help Leale-Green get the score north of 100.

The ones will be both pleased and disappointed with their campaign. Pleased that they were, for a while at least, title contenders but probably just a little disappointed that ultimately they ended up 5th. But, the top flight is a very tough league and there’s more than enough reason to be optimistic moving forward.

All the final league tables can be seen here. Well done everyone!