Towering Tom brings us home in thrilling T20 win over Beamers
posted: July 17, 2015

Well they don’t come a lot more satisfying than this. A win against the lovely Beamers, in the gathering gloaming of a mid-summer evening at North Middlesex, when, only a few overs before the denouement, the second loss of the season had looked on the cards, is hard to beat as a night’s entertainment.

The Beamers, under the careful stewardship of Pittman Jr, won the toss and elected to bat. From the off, the bowling was niggardly, Boughey proving himself particularly hard to get away. (Just look at the figures for verification of this. Nothing bowled on the leg side to the short boundary. Nothing. And not one boundary. Not one. OK, is that enough crowing?).

Tom, bowling off his short run, lost little in pace and got opener James off an inside edge, while Simon took a return catch off a leading edge from Buxton. This bought Kyle to the crease, clearly the danger man. However, he found it hard to find the middle of the bat, and, when he did, Tom performed wonders at long on, trotting from one end of the field to the other between overs and then sliding round to reach the next smack down the ground. It was one of the finest displays of ground fielding this writer has seen from a Stroller (OK, it’s a low bar), but it must have saved us some 15-20 runs.

No game with the Beamers is usually concluded without some spot of controversy or other. It could be, for example, Christian throwing a strop and marching off to point after his (and his alone) LBW appeal is turned down, or it could be Simon having handbags with Napoleon Dynamite, or it might be Al Dixon just generally shouting at people, members of the general public included, but there’s always something. On this occasion, it occurred when Kyle slapped a high-ish full toss from debutant Ram into the hands of Viral at mid-off, sauntered of down the wicket, and then, at the non-striker’s end, decided that the delivery had been, in fact, a no ball.

After due consideration, the umpire, Ralph - and it was probably about time an umpire got involved in the decision-making process – and some umm-ing and ah-ing, came to the conclusion that he agreed with Kyle and that it, yes, probably was a no ball. After some further thought, the square leg umpire was consulted, and he too agreed, quite emphatically, that it had been too high. And then confided he hadn’t really been paying attention.

All this might not have passed muster with the MCC, but we let it go and Kyle started slapping the ball around again, which was the main thing, obviously.

Viral picked up a wicket after Tom, to round off his brilliant fielding, slid in from mid on to take a tumbling catch, and then Ron got a wicket after an even better, sliding tumbling catch from the skipper at deep extra coverWhile wickets fell around him, Kyle kept going but, with only four overs to go, he was bowled by Ron for a vital break-through.

After this a few more were added, Viral took another wicket, there was a terrific run out involving Tom, inevitably, and Yash, and the innings concluded with 145 gettable but also defendable runs accumulated.

The Strollers innings did not get off to the best start. After smacking a four down the ground, Yash was bowled by young and female Cole and Gav lifted a full toss from Mark Pittman into the hands of short cover. One could have said, and many did, that this was a very, very (VERY! — Ed) similar dismissal to the one that Kyle had disputed, but umpire Boughey did not deem it a no ball, despite the urging of his square leg colleague. Gav departed for two, duly and justifiably chagrined. Débutant Sid got a good one from Mark which was a bit sharper and did a bit off the wicket and then George was caught on the cover boundary.

It seemed at this juncture as if the chances of a win rested with the two at the wicket, Viral and Ron. Both are dynamic batsmen who hit the ball cleanly. Ron hit a huge six to the furthest point of the boundary and lifted Cole back over her head for another six into the sightscreen, upon which the ball made a satisfying clanging sound.

Viral gave Bartlett the charge and was clean bowled, which brought Tom to the crease. We were still on the rate, but couldn’t afford to lose many more wickets. We were undoubtedly helped by several spills from the Beamers, Kyle proving particularly – and unusually – culpable. However, the chances of a Stroller win seemed to have disappeared when Ron hit one high and true over deep mid-wicket only for it to fall into the hands of James, who was the model of coolness in judging a brute of a catch.

At this point, we still needed 40 runs from four overs, and the skipper joined Tom while Boughey – the last man on the boundary – paced nervously and hoped his legendary expertise with the bat would not be required. But Tom was determined to win this one, and scurried, hurried, pulled and cut the total higher. With 20 required off the last two overs, he hoisted a six over mid-wicket and the target was in sight. A wide from Kyle beat the wicket-keeper and sped through to the boundary for the winning runs. We don’t do man of the match awards but, if we did, it would have been Tom Harvey, hands down.

“You can’t stop winning can you this season?’ asked Ralph in the bar afterwards, as we shared a few jars with the Beamers and reminded ourselves what decent blokes they all are. Indeed, it seems so.

Simon Boughey
17.07.15

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