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Played at Springfield Park,
Hackney
Report by Steve Hamilton (captain)
An excellent win against our local rivals Homerton and with
superb all round performances from all our players!
In the
blazing heat and very humid 30C conditions we decided on a 30-over
game. I lost the toss and Homerton decided to bat first. Yusuf Malji
opened the bowling with Tim Castle. The Homerton openers found it
extremely hard to get anything off Yusuf as he beat the bat numerous
times and definitely deserved a wicket and only went for 13 off his
5 overs. As for Tim he bowled a mixture of random stuff that baffled
the Homerton openers and it finally paid off by taking the wicket of
Hutch with a outside edge that wicket keeper Abdul Aziz had no
problem catching!
Homerton had a decent start and
were at 65 for 1 off 11.3 overs, when Azaz Kahlil bowled a yorker
into the leg stump and had the batsman jumping out the way -
the batter was still at the crease looking back at his wicket for a good few
seconds before eventually walking off. We were well in control of the
game by now! Andy Huckle got his rewards with constant line and
length and took two wickets. He should have had a third, with two LBW
appeals being turned down. Azaz took another wicket and the Homerton
team began to look fragile as they went from 65-1 to 96-7!
Excellent leg spin bowling followed from Majid Patel, who took a
wicket for a miserly 10 runs off his three overs - and he definitely
should have had two! But Mr Butter Fingers himself [i.e. Mr
S.Hamilton] was at deep square leg
and struggled to hold onto the ball - I had it for second and than I
had some kind of flap and dropped it. But it wasn't too costly, as I
managed to get Danni (formerly known as Stuart) clean bowled a few overs
later.
John Shaw, still the master of self control in every
situation, bowled intelligently and got a wicket off his first over
when the batsman skyed one straight to Yusuf Malji at long off -
Yusuf was cool, calm and collected and never looked in any doubt of
dropping it, and caught it effortlessly, unlike a certain other
player that I won't care to mention! I managed to take another
wicket and Homerton reached 153-9 off 30 overs. Only the Aussie
leftie who played a very self-controlled 33 not out (a.k.a. David
Fauls, an Old Fallopians new recruit generously gifted to the opposition] got them to a
reasonable total.
We got off to decent start, with opener
Will Hopson-Hill making his special, once-a-season guest appearance,
hitting two consecutive massive sixes and racing to 21 in no time, and
never looking in any trouble against the Homerton bowling.
Until disaster happened and a miscommunication between Will and
fellow opener Farhad Waqar resulted in a run out with both batsman ending up at the same end.
Finally, after all the confusion, it was Will that was given out.
Ammer Malji showed himself to be a classy batsman, full of panache.
With
his stylish shots he smashed three fours for a quick 16 before
lighting struck twice and another freak run out occurred. This time
it was not
anyone's fault. Farhad hit the ball straight back to the
bowler Marcus, who reached down and got a hand on
the ball which went on to hit the stumps. Unfortunately Ammer was backing up
too far and was out of his ground and thus was very much ... out!
We were on 60-2 off 10 when Majid Patel came in, definitely
making his presence felt with his calm composure, quick singles and
elegant strokes. He never looked in any trouble, staying the
distance to finish 35 not out, including six fours.
As for Farhad, he's a man in
good form at the moment with big scores already this season - a
hundred at Chelmsford and three 50s. He gave another flawless
performance with the bat, getting another 50 before selflessly
giving
his wicket away when we only needed 20-odd runs to win! Mr On-Fire
(Azaz Kahlil) had a rest day and didn't have be our saviour for a
change and got us over the line effortlessly with his usual
swashbuckling style, smashing the ball to his favourite leg side for
a quick-fire 18 not out with four fours
All round, a perfect
day that was played with passion and competitive spirit that ended
with smiles and handshakes and nice drink with the opposition in The
Crooked Billet afterwards.
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