Played

Report

by Adriano de'Lightly IV

The middle day of any Bank Holiday is never the easiest for arranging cricket fixtures but somehow we managed to find 11 Relishers who were prepared to seek out Harlington Sports Ground off the M4 motorway for a match against Salix which was played under generally sunny skies with just the merest hint of a Force 9 hurricane.

Having lost the toss, skipper-for-the-day Dave was asked to field and so we set ourselves up against this new opposition with the recent victory fresh in our collective minds.

Brian & Dave opened up and, despite some action on the no-ball front, kept it reasonably tidy. Indeed, we had three of their top order back in the hutch with around 40 on the board after some delightful yorkers and a good catch in the gully by newcomer Malcolm. Unfortunately, this only served to bring in more determined batsmen and we began to toil, struggling to find our rhythm and to be brutally honest handing them boundaries whilst not holding our catches (guilty as charged - Ed.)

First change Adrian was on the money at first, removing one of their left-handers' off stump, before suffering some 'tap' at the hands of their #3, who went on to hit a very capable and roundly-applauded unbeaten century.

The scoreboard was now ticking along in the wind and despite us ringing the changes - Chris grabbing a hard-earned wicket with a smart catch behind from Andy standing up to the spinners and Nikhil bowling some lovely tweakers without any luck at all - Salix were streaking ahead past 200 and, very shortly after, 250. Dave and Nick came back on and, although they slowed things down with another wicket each, we had to bowl our full complement of 35 overs and Salix finished on a massive (possibly club record, from the reaction on the sidelines?) 305 for 7.

After a pleasant tea upstairs and a perusal of the fascinating Imperial College historical photographs, we decided on a batting order and, somewhat folornly if truth be told, set about our 300+ run-chase.

Andy & Ollie went in and were immediately faced with some accurate fast-medium bowling which accounted for both of them, although Andy did manage to reveal a hitherto-unseen predilection for the 'late-cut four', each of which was enthusiastically cheered from the boundary. By now we knew the game was pretty much up and when both Roger and Nick fell to the impressive figure of Milton at the far end, Adrian and Dave dropped anchor and added 25 or so before both fell to deliveries that 'kept low' (it says here) off the left-arm tweak of the splendidly-named Ghuwalewala. Mr Territt hung around for a while but our resources were clearly stretched and it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened and, as our last wicket fell, we had accumulated the rather paltry total of 66 runs.

Utter spanking as it was, Salix were a very nice bunch and even they admitted afterwards that their batting line-up wasn't usually that impressive; hopefully we can invite them back to SE London next season for a return (revenge?) fixture...

Thanks to everyone who played, especially at short notice, and braved the Bank Holiday traffic and trains to turn out for the Relishers - hey, we can't win every week!

Result

Salix CC: 305-7 (35.0 overs)

GRACC: 66 all out (17.4 overs)

Salix CC won by a whopping 239 runs

Man of the match: Dave took 3-39 and top scored - with 16 - so the bearded wonder gets the nod!

Champagne Moment: Not much to shout about but Andy did take a very good leg-side catch behind the stumps, having dived full-length to his left

Comedy Moment: All the dropped catches? OK, how about Brian's golden duck - although he may claim he was given 'conflicting advice' on his way in...