Nihal Tomar's 'The Verdict'

After avoiding defeat for the first time this season, Twickenham 3’s went head to head against an unbeaten Harrow St Mary’s side with quite a lot riding on the game for both teams. Twickenham were looking to make home advantage count on a decent looking deck at Broom Road whereas their counterparts were aiming to go top of the pile with a victory if other results worked in their favour. After winning the toss, a gleeful Harrow St Mary’s skipper did not hesitate to bat first. I’m sure Robbie would have done likewise if he called correctly. Or would he?

I felt we didn’t start the way we expected as Damian and Wayne were getting used to the sweltering heat. Despite the inconsistency in line and length, Harrow St Mary’s opener Safdar Zaman really took advantage and got his team off to a flier. I was stood back behind the stumps thinking “this surely can’t be déjà vu from last Saturday”. I must give credit to Robbie for persisting with Damian and Wayne despite their inconsistent start and it paid off with the openers back in the hut. 60-1 then became 86-6 as we did really well to squeeze the runs and in turn swing the pendulum in our favour. I suppose in cricket its quite easy to think that the work is done when you have the oppo 80 odd for 6 but there are 4 other batters to get out obviously. I felt we partially let Harrow St Marys off the hook somewhat, but we do have to give credit to their mid to lower order batters for digging in and keeping the scoreboard ticking when needed. We eventually bowled them out for 151 and if offered that at broom road I would have snapped your hand off given the start they got and also looking at the mechanisms of our team. Damian was superb in the second half of his spell and Max was once again exemplary in the middle overs. I was scratching my head as to why he didn’t share the new ball with Damian but hey what do I know! I felt our catching was on point and minus a few skirmishes in the field, the overall fielding performance as a whole was excellent.

We didn’t get off to the best of starts in the run chase. Unfortunately yours truly batted 93 balls less than the 96 against Indian Gymkhana and also didn’t trouble the scorers. Ali and Dev managed to string some sort of partnership but we managed to lose wickets in quick succession. We all of a sudden then found ourselves 64-8 thanks to some excellent bowling and some questionable batting. Robbie (28) and Damian (34) had other ideas! They both batted brilliantly and in turn put on 64 for the 9th wicket. They were very selective in their shots and got us to within 31 runs to victory. A dejected Robbie was caught behind leaving young Max and Damian to see us home. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t get over the line as Harrow St Marys ran out victorious by 17 runs. There was genuine hope and we thought lady luck was on our side when Robbie was given 2 reprieves but unfortunately wasn’t to be. As gutted and annoyed as I am in defeat, I must give credit to Harrow St Marys for their victory, their left arm seamer was by far the star of the show and a shout out to young Middlesex bowler Sonali Patel for grabbing 3 wickets in the process.

Its yet another defeat and this one really stings. I genuinely think we as a batting unit are not quite up to scratch with regards to competing with other sides in this league. In my opinion that wicket was not a 64-8 wicket and truth be told we had a stronger batting line up this week on paper. The top 7 (myself included) really need to do better as a batting collective. Robbie and Damian at 9 and 10 respectively showed us how to apply yourself and cash in on scorable deliveries. I think we are stuck between a rock and a hard place in the sense that most of us want to smack the ball out of the park and the others tend to get bogged down to the point of then getting themselves out. There needs to be some sort of value put on your wicket. Yes, they had a couple of good bowlers and they bowled well, but Robbie and Damian made them look ordinary at times (to the point they got hooked out of the attack). The games against Stanmore and North London were proof of this. Our defeat margins were 2 wickets, 2 wickets and 17 runs respectively. If each batter contributes 10/15 runs more than what the got, then we have three wins under our belt easily. I understand that there needs to be positivity in the side and I see that a lot when we field and bowl but I struggle to see any positivity when we have 0 wins in 8 games of cricket. In my opinion (and I could be wrong) but I see a real mentality issue within the batting unit and this needs to change come next week as we are away to North Middlesex (who are top of the league). Robbie works his socks off to get a competitive side week in week out and we as a team owe it to him massively. Unfortunately he’s away next week so lets respond and use this to compete and get our first win of the season!

By Nihal Tomar