Match Report: NECC vs Norwood
As another Sunday arrived it was the return of an English classic recently thought lost to the fixture list. No, not the War of the Roses, something far more important. It was the return of the battle of Norwood.
The toss was won by NECC, and captain on the day, Charlie, elected to field. With our bowlers having been dominant for the majority of the season, it seemed like a good tactic.
Openers Aidan and Josh got us off to a good start keeping the runs down and applying the pressure. There was also a good start in the field –in particular Luke, who on his return kept excellently on a typically testing pitch– and the rest chipping in with some excellent takes and the sharp reading of a fair few impossible bounces that The Lakes has up its idiosyncratic sleeves.
With the openers giving us a good start, it was time for a change in the bowling and in an interesting spell from Charlie that included a few full tosses, a few short balls and a couple of beauties one of the Norwood openers and the captain at number three were gone with Kashif making some great catches at slip.
With these two wickets it was an opportunity to get some more and put us in a really good position. However, the only issue with this was that the other Norwood opener was a league cricketer that averages 50 in league cricket in 2021 and he made a century before then realising he didn’t have to waste any more of his or anyone elses time and retired on 113. Maybe next time he will stick to his league level and give the rest of us a fair chance...
By this point Norwood were looking at a very high score. The introduction of Jack and Aaron brought some tight overs (as long as you don't look at the extras column) and Aaron picked up a couple of wickets, one caught by Aidan off a slower ball. DRS would have shown it as a massive front foot no ball, but fortunately The Lakes remains unchanged from the 1950s, without any of that sort of technology. It's possible Aaron owes the umpire a drink.
Norwood finished their innings on 288 all out with openers Josh and Aidan finishing it off in the final overs
There was little optimism that the Exiles could chase this score down, and this turned into expectation rather than faint hope when we found ourselves 0/1 in the first over. After this we tried to build an innings but a mixture of good bowling and a few incredible catches meant that we could get nowhere near their score and were all out for 85.
Jack was our top scorer with 18, closely followed by the extras with 17.
A disappointing loss but a much nicer bunch of Norwood players than last time. The fact that we played against one of the better league players freely scoring runs (maybe the 700 so far in league cricket isn’t quite enough for him yet) means it was a better experience than last year’s fractious derby.
Player of the Match this week goes to Aidan, whose figures of 3-30 from eight overs is about as much as you can ask for from an opener facing that level of batsmen. He also was one of the top scorers of the innings which included a couple of shots resembling sweeps, enough to make me fear he might not get up with his knee in one piece.
His performance also included a nice smart catch off Aaron's slower ball which Aidan had predicted. We're sure he wants to claim an assist for the wicket which would be a first in the stats sheet.
To finish, it was a story of what most of 2021 has been for the Exiles, playing higher level players and the batting collapsing far too cheaply. Plenty to work on going into our last game against Trinity Oxley and moving into the winter nets.
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