Glenmore Cricket Club News story


Match Report: 2nd XI vs Crown Sabres, June 30th

30 Jun 2013

Sunday was a glorious, sunny day at Riley and every one was itching to get back onto the field after the recent problems that the city has faced. It was good to be around the team and certainly for Smudgington it was a required respite away from Bowness. 

Even before the game started, Wasim wisely chose to say a few words about the floods and asked for a minute of silence for those who lost their lives; the game was dedicated to all those affected.

After winning the toss, Wasim chose to bat first sending out the openers, Trevor and Anjan. Again, there was a bit of discussion at how some teams, like Crown Sabres, have abused the seeding rule for players since a few of their club's top players somehow, magically, appeared to have been relegated to the third division that day. More than likely, it was a clerical error and soon enough, they'll find themselves back in their rightful place in the top division. 

In what seems to be a familiar scene Trevor returned to the sidelines soon after leaving them because of a, how does one say it, questionable LBW call. At that point, it began to creep into the team's mind that it might be one of those days. 

Next up was Wasim and it wasn't what the captain wanted. After two balls, Wasim smashed the ball back at the bowler Talha, who caught it. And though it was disappointing for Wasim to return after two balls, he did a tremondous favour to the club. Not that he had aspirations to do it but his ball, hit with such force back at Talha dislocated the bowler's finger. Talha, the clerical-error beneficiary, wouldn't be able to bat.

Iqbal was next up. It was all happening quite quickly again. After a couple of overs, Iqbal hit a shot to backward square leg where to was gobbled up by Umar, another clerical-error beneficiary. Hardeep came up and did well for himself and the club. Hitting another top score for the side. In the meantime Anjan was caught by the ubiquitous Umar. And it was 4-not-very-much. Anand made his way to the centre and with Hardeep they steadied the side, made wise shot selection and did some great running between the wickets. 

Hardeep surindered his wicket to the left arm spinner. (See what I did there?!) and BJ made his way into the side to face Surinder and Hamad the googly bowler. There were a couple of runs between Anand and BJ thanks to the spinners but it wasn't long enough to steady the ship and gain enough runs. Anand was caught by the googlyier. And then Sir Smudgington entered the fray from the fray of Bowness. He hit a nice double and in came one of the openers. Smith soon returned because of an unfortunate bounce. The ball was swinging pretty good and as Jon tried to jump out of the way of the pacey ball it deflected off his pad onto the stumps. In came Ammar and out went BJ who played a shot that was off stumps directly to Umar at point. It was disappointing. 

Nabeel came into the middle but, unfortunately, couldn't replicate his Taverners performance from a couple days previous. He was caught after two by Talha. The tailend did the team proud though. Dave went to the centre and put on some good runs with Ammar. Hitting and running and hitting and running and there was some hope that if these two could stay for a few overs more, that if the seconds could get to triple digits then there was a game to be had. This realisation crumbled though on an overthrow. Thinking that there was one more run to be had, Ammar quickly turned when he saw that the wicketkeeper couldn't handle the ball and it went by him. Dave, however, was 20 feet past the crease since he hadn't slowed down in order to beat the original ball. By the time he had turned around and tried to make it to the bowler's end, he had already run a marathon and despite diving to make it, David a dollar short. 
Glenmore out for 85.

Fielding was always going to be difficult. Defending 85 is a difficult proposition anywhere but if it can be done, Riley is the place to do it. The grass is long. It's a defender's paradise. In order to make the runs, you've got to hit the ball in the air. And if we can take the catches, we can take the match. 

Iqbal opened the bowling and had it swinging because the batsmen weren't making contact well with the ball. David was the other opener and he, too, was bowling well. There wasn't much that Salman and Shahid could do. There was a run here and there but nothing massive. The first batsman went down to a catch by Iqbal. There was a couple of close chances for Anjan at slips but the ball fell short before it reached him. One could feel that the game was there to be had. Dave missed a great chance off his own bowling, getting a hand on the hot shot but only enough to pop it up behind him. The wicket was coming. 

The second one went to Dave. The third one's credit went to Dave as well. The batsman hit it back at him and Dave, like the first one hit at him got a lot on the ball, not enough to catch it but just enough to deflect it to BJ, who didn't have to do much to catch it. Sadly, this catch was attributed to him in the records. Again, foiled by a clerical error! With the game about 10 overs done, there was a bit of a chance, a half chance that we could pull it back especially with the knowledge that Talha wouldn't be batting because of his finger. These dreams were crushed with the batting of Muneeb. He eventually scored a 38 before being caught by Dave (?!). 

But it was one of those what could have been bats. He was dropped twice in the field; there was a half chance at the boundary. The bowling was on the wicket and he wasn't having any of it. I wouldn't say that his batting style is exceptionally straight, or for that matter, straight, but he can hit the ball and was slogging it pretty good. Hardeep got some chances to bowl and ended up getting a couple of wickets. Umar came out and left soon afterwards. He skied a shot that must have reached the stratosphere to come down, taken nimbly by the soft hands of BJ. Oh, I know you liked that sentence.

Crown was teetering but there wasn't much time on our hands. There was 10 or 15 overs to go with 10 or 15 runs to spare. Nabeel bowled a couple. Wasim bowled one. There was another wicket and I want to say it was Anjan's fantastic grab at slips that he tried to play down but that could have been earlier in the match. Soon the game was tied and in came Ammar to bowl. Only 12 overs to go. 4 wickets to mow down. But it wasn't to be. 

All in all, it was a great game and a great atmosphere. A beautiful day on the long weekend. The captain started it out by setting the mood of the game with the minute of silence and everyone on the team was grateful for where they were. And that was reflected in the play. It could have been worse. With some more fair play it could have been better for the seconds.