Strollers get out of jail again
posted: September 10, 2012

The Strollers completed their 5th win on the trot today with a narrow win over the Salmagundi Gardeners. But, once again, it took a monumental lower order batting effort to get there, and who should be there to bring home the bacon? Of course, one of them was none other than Rob Davies, the man who eats bowlers for breakfast and spits them out again with a disdainful zero-backlift swish of his putter cricket bat. The heroics at the other end came from Dave Couldrey, sporting a first class hangover and a slimmed down, no-longer-Boris-Johnson-like haircut, who combined with Rob at a point when all seemed lost for a match-winning, undefeated 64-run partnership.

Once again, Salmagundi were only there after a late cancellation of the scheduled game against National Theatre. The game was scheduled at the rather unappetising venue of Rectory Park in Northolt, all we could get due to a late scheduling. Both teams showed up with only 9 players, and in our case one of the 9 was an American who had never played cricket before, although he could swing a bat baseball-style rather well.

Salmagundi won the toss and sent the Strollers out to field first, which happily was going to be our choice anyway. Boughey and Davies were on top from the start, with runs proving extremely difficult to come by for the opening pair. Rob, bowling extremely well once again, soon broke through after inducing a false shot which was caught by Sturm at cover.

A solid partnership was then established for the second wicket, although the scoring was very slow indeed. Simon Boughey bowled 5 overs for a miserly 9 runs, almost all of them at the opening batsman Higginbottom, and was unlucky not to have a wicket after beating the bat many times. Higginbottom was eventually bowled by Gillies for 21, having been recalled by the Strollers twice, once for an LBW that the Strollers eventually concurred had hit the bat first, and the second for a stumping chance upon which Higginbottom walked but was again called back by keeper Couldrey.

Monahan and Redman batted with slightly more aggression – Spencer came in for an unusual bit of stick until he switched to pace and had Monahan well caught by Boughey at gully and Campbell caught behind.

Wickets fell with a certain regularity from around that time. Chris Lucas bowled exceptionally well and thoroughly deserved his 3-13 off 5 overs. Lucas was assisted by the catching of Boughey (again) and Couldrey, who first picked up another catch at wicket-keeper, and then, after Sturm had taken over the glove-duties, took an absolute blinder at slip. Leaping high after one flew hard at him off the edge, Couldrey parried the ball up with his outstretched right hand, then juggled it several times on the way down before finally landing with the ball safely lodged in his outstretched hand. Superb effort that!
Salmagundi were finally all out for 118, providing an even lower run chase than the Strollers had almost cocked-up the week before against The VCC. But this time we only had six "frontline" batters and 9 players in total.

Unfortunate it was then, that 5 of those 6 batters were skittled out within 9 overs of the innings by Salmagundi swing-genius Campbell. It wasn't that Campbell was particularly fast, but he was bowling bananas that swung both ways, and was also getting movement off the pitch. Mark Burgess managed to smack a 4 and a single before he was bowled. Sturm lasted just 2 balls before playing all round a big inswinger, and Chris Lucas was bowled first ball to an away swinger. Gillies lasted a couple of overs before he also fell, bowled by a lovely away swinger that took the top of off.  Spencer seemed essentially at ease, as he always does, but was done in by the pitch after one reared up as he was going for the hook and was caught at square leg.

Campbell was mercifully taken off having taken 5 wickets of a 5-over spell, and there followed an interesting period during which ringer and first-time cricketer Brendan Droge swung at a few balls, baseball style, connecting with a few but ultimately being done in by a full pitched ball which clipped the off stump.

Six wickets down for 58, still 61 runs short of the target, and only Couldrey, Davies and Boughey left to do it. Fortunately perhaps for Boughey, who was waiting more and more nervously on the sideline, his services were not ultimately required as Couldrey and Davies set about their 64-run wonder-partnership.
Dave Couldrey has struggled for runs at times in recent seasons, always showing talent but – Bopara-like - perhaps not delivering as much as he would like to. But this and the innings against the Railway Tavs surely showed what he is capable of. Campbell and Bruce were the main frontline bowlers, with some of the rest having certain pie-like characteristics. Couldrey did extremely well to contain himself and, but for a couple of punishing boundaries, the runs were mostly collected safety-first in ones and twos. 

Davies was mostly comfortable with rock-solid, shuffling defence, and did well to see off Bruce and negate the rest of the bowling. There was a delicious cover drive early on and a magnificent moment when he spanked not one but two fours in consecutive balls (!) off bowler Duckett.
The great challenge was the return of Campbell for his final two overs. Davies and Couldrey carefully managed it so that Couldrey faced these two overs in their entirety – intelligent batting from the two all-stars – and Couldrey saw us safely through both.

From there it seemed only a matter of time. Indeed, Salmagundi seemed determined to help us as they bowled an enormous number of wides; a whopping 24 in fact with 43 extras in total. Finally, the scores were tied and, fittingly, it was Couldrey who this time finished it off by smashing a full toss high over square leg, one bounce for four.

Heroic stuff, and the Strollers out of jail once again. Well done, Dave and Rob.

ps: Many thanks to Spencer's Gran who provided three enormous trays of the best sandwiches we've had all year (whaddagal!), and Spencer's Ma who made the brownies. Thanks, ladies!

Tim Sturm
09.09.12

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