Match Report: NECC vs Trinity Oxley
Having lost the toss, we were asked to field on the brownest of all the pitches on the square. A long 'Whatsapp' conversation on the Friday night between the captain and vice-captain resulted in a slightly left-field bowling strategy for this game. Charlie, who has kept wickets with some regularity this season, was to take the new ball with Kalp taking over the gloves. We decided to have spin from one end and seam from the other. An astute observation from ECB Level 2 coach, Iain, helped us bowl spin from the end which carried the longer boundary on the leg side.
Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?!
Charlie started off with two wicket-maidens having Woodhouse caught behind in the first over and skipper David, bowled in the second. Aidan, at the other end was probing Seymour’s outside edge with some beautiful outswing. This prompted Kalp to bring Aaron in to first slip with Charlie at second. A full toss on leg stump was flicked away to boundary by Seymour. In response, Aidan removed the first slip to add a long leg. Two balls later, Seymour edged one to where first slip would have been. Kalp dived to grab the chance but only managed to get fingertips on it. As former English captain and Sky Cricket pundit, Michael Artherton once said, you set your field for the good balls, not the bad ones.
Raj and Seymour had put on 26 together to fight back with Raj dropped at mid-on by Jack off Charlie. Manoj replaced Aidan in the eight over and immediately struck to remove Seymour LBW. Sundip Nair –the top scorer for Trinity Oxley at our earlier meet in June– walking in to join Raj. Raj managed a few boundaries off Charlie’s last two overs to slightly dent his figures. Nonetheless, a fantastic opening spell of 2 for 26 off 6 overs for Charlie. Iain replaced Charlie and carried on his good form with the ball starting tidily. At the other end, Manoj was wreaking havoc as his third over, a maiden, saw Nair and Madu bowled off consecutive balls. Sajjid dug out a perfect yorker to deny Manoj a hat trick, but Sajjid could not keep him out for long as he was clean bowled in Manoj’s next over with a full delivery.
Raj had decided to go for boundaries with wickets falling at the other end. He managed two fours off Iain’s third over before he missed a low full toss and was bowled off his pads having scored vital 27 runs. Young Harry replaced Raj but was clean bowled as he played across the line to a straight ball.
Soham, who very kindly played for us last week, came in at 8. His solid defence saw him hold up one end. Aaron replaced Manoj who had bowled a spell of a lifetime where he took four wickets for four runs off five overs with three maidens. Middleton was out LBW for two to Aaron and that brought David, another played who was on our team sheet the previous week, at number 11. Iain finished his spell of six overs for 17 runs with two wickets and a maiden. He was unlucky to not have a third wicket as Kalp underarm missed the stumps with Soham’s foot on the line. That did not prove too costly as Aaron had David clean bowled with a beautiful outswinger that had David defending a middle stump line but hit top of off. Tidy figures for Aaron of eight runs for two wickets off four overs.
Trinity Oxley were all out in the 24th over with 55 runs off the bat and 12 extras bulking up the score to 67. In the previous fixture, we had conceded almost 18% of their total in extras which was mirrored again.
A quick change of innings saw Kalp and Shah open the batting. Sundip had the new ball for Trinity Oxley. In June, he finished with 5-22 against us. They must have been hoping for a similar performance from him. We were expecting an easy chase on a tricky pitch, but you can never tell how good a pitch is until both sides have batted.
Sundip started but Kalp managed a boundary off his first over. Any nerves or doubts about which way the match might go were firmly laid to rest by Shah as he took 14 runs off Soham’s first over. The opening partnership was broken by Sundip in the first over for 34 as he got through Shah’s defences after he had scored 15 runs. Jack came in at number three. Seymour’s off spin replaced Soham at the other end and was taken for 10 runs by Kalp in the first over to propel the chase.
The next few overs saw some good running between the wickets to take the score to 56 at the end of the 9th over. Kalp took a single of the first ball of Seymour’s third over, the 10th of the innings, and Jack finished the chase with a big six over long on, the first of the match, followed by a couple of twos. Jack finished on 13 not out and Kalp top scored with 33 not out.
This 9-wicket win was the result of a clinical performance with the ball. Another fine reminder of the value of bowling at the stumps with some variations to the length on a Sunday afternoon.
The player of the match on this afternoon was Manoj who ran through the middle order of the opposition and set up a comfortable victory for the Exiles.
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