Chiswick CC won the toss to start the day off and decided to bat first. The opening bowlers, Dom Thamby and Ozzie Qavi, bowled tight lines and made it difficult for the Chiswick openers to score early on with the first 7 overs only going for 18. Robby Bosier replaced Thamby and continued his good work by bowling each ball to an outside-off line trying to lure the Chiswick openers to edge one to the slips.

Although the opening seam bowlers did not let Chiswick score easily, they were unable to break the opening partnership. Ozzie in particular bowled well as he beat the outside edge numerous times.

Spin is the key
With the score 48-0 off 13 overs, off-spin was introduced as Nakul Vishvanath was brought on. He stuck to a good line and length, tossing the ball up and turning it back into off-stump. He was later rewarded with the first wicket by bowling the opener out.

Shreeraj Chauhan was also brought into the attack soon after and was backed by his captain with an attacking field. The skipper’s positive mindset earned Twickenham their second wicket of the innings with a great catch taken at short cover. Chauhan took another wicket as he varied the speed and flight of his deliveries, and Nikhil Nomula then came into the attack and did the very same thing, taking two wickets in consecutive balls. His second wicket was an absolute peach, it pitched about a metre outside off-stump and turned back in to bowl the batsman who was facing his first ball.

The spin partnership of Chauhan and Nomula was turning out to be very successful. They got Twickenham into Chiswick’s tail with the visitors by now struggling on score 100-6 off 29 overs. Tom Field was brought on and like all the other bowlers he hardly bowled any bad balls. Field also varied the pace at which he bowled and eventually got himself his first MDL wicket of the season thanks to a top edge caught at short fine leg.

Although the tail of Chiswick CC was exposed, their number 3 batsman was still in and did not let the spinners of Twickenham bowl too many balls to the tail enders. Despite all his efforts, he eventually did end up running out of partners. He finished on 48 not out and Luke Jeffreys took the final wicket to leave Chiswick all out for 137 runs off 40.4 overs.

Lightening start
A fantastic effort in the field meant that the Ts needed to chase 138 runs off 39 overs. Openers Nomula and Ajmal Allahdad got the hosts off to a flyer by playing proper cricket shots. Nikhil and Ajmal both batted stylishly, hitting fluent drives off the front foot and powerful pull shots off the back foot. The score was 78-0 off the first 10 overs and at this point only one result looked possible.

Things changed once Chiswick brought spin on and the opening partnership was broken by their young leg spinner. He got Ajmal out for 36 runs when he top-edged the ball straight into the air and got caught with the score 85-1. Soon the Captain Nikhil Nomula was also out, leaving Tom Field and Nakul Vishvanath at the crease.

The collapse to end all collapses
Field was looking dangerous when he was in the middle as he put anything loose away, but eventually he too found the top-edge attempting to sweep and was caught at mid-wicket. This sparked a middle order collapse as Chauhan and Vishvanath got themselves out cheaply and Robbie Bosier was out-done by the Chiswick leg-spinner who again found turn and bounce to nick him off.

All of a sudden Twickemham went from being in total control to being in a position where we could actually lose. Dom Thamby and Ozzie Qavi were now at the crease with the score 104-6 and Twickenham needed them to put in a valuable partnership much like they did the week before. However Thamby smashed a short ball straight to mid-wicket and then we really were in trouble.

It was up to Qavi and his new partner, Waris Khan, to get the Ts home. Qavi did not look fazed by the pressure and found the boundary a few times to give the dugout some confidence. Waris held his end up too and gave Qavi good support in the middle, but Qavi was eventually caught at short cover for 16 runs to become the leg-spinner’s 7th victim.

With only one wicket to defend, we needed only 12 more runs to win the match and by this time the middle order batsman who gave their wickets away realised what they had done. Chiswick were the ones on top now after a terrific comeback and soon bowled us out for 128 runs to win the match.

Inquest
Shocked faces were on the heads of all Twickenham players. At 85-0 the game was Twickenham's to lose and that is exactly what Twickenham then went on to do. Perhaps it was complacency from the middle order batsman who realised the target was within touching distance so they didn’t value their wicket as much as they would do normally.

What was good to see was that each player put up their hand after the game and took responsibility for this loss. Twickenham were humbled by the Chiswick comeback and in the spirit of the game, we congratulated them on not giving up and beating us. For that reason, it is safe to say that they deserved to win and we deserved to lose for our attitude.

Each player will, without a doubt, take a long, hard look at themselves going into the next fixture and do their best to ensure that we kill off games in order to avoid the disappointing result we got on this day.

By Shreeraj Chauhan