'Hiccups' avoided with another convincing win!
posted: May 17, 2015

The Strollers continued their undefeated start to the season with a resounding win against the Highgate Irregulars at Old Cholmeleians CC on Sunday. It was a victory inspired by useful contributions throughout the batting order and a fine performance in the field with some very able bowling supported by six good catches and a run-out.

Yet things did not start quite as smoothly and our openers struggled to get going against some tight opening bowling on what was a rather, ahem, sticky wicket. This was soon in evidence as one stopped on Gav who, too early through his stroke, chipped one into the grateful hands of Owen off the bowling of the miserly Chipperfield.

Spectating Strollers accepted this early loss with the stoicism generated from years of watching Spencer resuscitate an innings at number three. Disaster, then, when he fell for a rare duck and the rest of the batting line up knew that they would have to stand up and be counted. And that is exactly what they did.

George and Matt, who have both been in wonderful form at the start of this season, led the recovery with an important partnership. George did particularly well to survive the openers before accelerating with intent either side of drinks and Matt knocked off a confident 30 before falling to Elwes as the wicket again proved tricky to placate.

Yet these days our middle order is made of pretty Sturm stuff and Tim, next in, batted well. After George finally went, bowled by the wily Kyriakides, it was Tim who anchored the innings as batsmen fell on their swords around him, smashing the Irregular bowling to all corners of this north London meadow. Among these aggressors was debutant Nel who wasted no time in making a breezy 34 before falling to a jaffa from Owen that clipped his off peg.

But there was to be no relief for the increasingly jaded fielding side as both Viral and then later Kashif scored more quick runs in the final few overs to ease us past the psychologically significant 200 mark. In all, more than half the total was scored in the last ten overs, a run-fest hugely enjoyed by those on the boundary (including at least five fully fledged members of the Pimlico Strollers fan club).

Tea was good and this is a consideration not to be under emphasised and was certainly not under appreciated by this writer. Nowhere in sight were the ghastly culinary offerings of N### L##### (cricket club name blanked out for reasons along lines of not biting the hand that feeds and soforth — Ed), but instead there were sarnies and cakes, scones with jam and I suspect that our absent epicure Mr Boughey would have been most impressed by this worthy manifestation of the good old English Cricket Tea.

Unfortunately, we had a cricket match to complete and so we took to the field, confident that we had set a defendable total. Like us, the Irregulars initially struggled to adjust to the sticky wicket as Gideon and Spencer offered few scoring opportunities and it was not long before Gideon took the breakthrough wicket of Key who feathered an inside edge behind and then Gideon followed this up by bowling the other opener Hamilton for 6.

Rather worryingly, Spencer collapsed after hurting his back but Gideon came up trumps again as the dangerous Singh smeared him to mid off where Viral took a good, sharp catch. This brought our nemesis Alex Gray to the crease who, along with captain Elwes, began to build a dangerous looking partnership.

With Gideon having bowled out all his overs, it was time for debutant Nel to take over from the bottom end and our new South African signing managed to trap Elwes LBW just before drinks. By this stage, the odds were in our favour but with A Gray still there and Tony Mitchell joining him, the contest was far from over.

Matt took over wicketkeeping duties after drinks and, almost immediately, Mitchell pulled Nel to square leg where Couldrey managed to hold on. Gray continued to biff away at the other end but was running out of partners as Nel also picked up the wickets of Trevor and Chipperfield and Owen was run out for 5.

It was Khan, from the other end, who finally ended Gray's defiant knock after the latter heaved to Doshi at mid wicket and Khan's final figures, incidentally, make very pretty reading - 1 for 6 off 5 overs. With the match all but won, the Strollers crowded the bat and turned to spin in the shape of Couldrey, Brown and Spencer. Gray Sr. and Kyriakides offered spirited resistance but the former was eventually the last man out as Viral claimed his third catch of the afternoon off Brown.

A good victory then and an excellent performance all round. The bowlers were not let down by their fielders and there were good knocks with the bat throughout the order. Many thanks must go to the Irregulars, especially for providing an excellent tea and for supervising the changing of Tim's flat tyre but also for a good game of cricket on a nice sunny day, which was much closer for long periods than the scorecard actually suggests.

David Couldrey
18.05.15

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