Report by "The Twelfth Man":
Today the opponents are Linton II, fellow strugglers and, like the NFL playoffs, the winner has life for one more week, the loser in our case is relegated. The team sheet was an interesting one: with stalwarts Daniel Mortlock in Sweden and Andy Owen nursing a broken collerbone, the team was led by Richard Rex - according to Andy only the sixth captain in Romsey history. The team is top heavy with eight bowlers and includes two dips into the CCA "AP" tombola: Camden and Remnants regular Alec Armstrong and Alan Raven from Cottenham making his second guest appearance for Romsey. The pitch is a green one, having had some-much needed rain; Richard calls heads correctly and politely invites Linton to bat first. Dressing room team talk is simple go out enjoy the game have fun.
Opening the attack with Stephan van Eeden and Aditya Vaidyanathan it was Linton who got off to a bright start scoring 18 from the first 4 overs before Stephan got the breakthrough batsman Tom Cropper coming a cropper when a straight ball smashes into his wicket. This is closely followed by the Linton number 3, who suffers the same fate in Stephan's next over. 22/2 after 8 overs and Richard elects to go for a double bowling change - Andy and I exchanged glances thinking that it's come a little too early . . . but the decision is an inspired one as I am happily kept very busy scoring as the game entered a dreamlike subliminal phase lasting 20 minutes during which Linton lose 7 wickets for 17 runs in 7 overs. It's the Alec and Alan "AP" show as Alec with his well flighted spin and Alan with his excellent line and length dominate the proceedings. Helped by catches from Marcelino Gopal, Martin Prowse, Huw Davies and a sharp catch from his own bowling, Alan (3/14 in 5 overs) and Alec (4/19 in 5 overs) take the score to 41/9 and I am wondering when Romsey have skittled teams out for less than 50. The answer was three times, but not since in the 1980s - surely this record will be equalled today? Out strides Linton tailender Josh Newman who has nothing to lose and with no fear supported by Jonah Monday, and over the course of the next 8 overs decides it's his turn to have fun hitting the ball to all parts of the ground, top scoring with 19* off 16 balls and an annoying 31-run partnership taking the score to 72 before Stephan (3/15) ends proceedings by bowling Monday for 6. (But spare a thought for Aditya, who went wicketless in his 6 over spell.)
After the tea interval my advice to the batsmen was a simple one: you have 240 balls to score 73 runs, so take your time use as many balls as you want. Richard smiled and said "it was time for one 'epic' innings then", and so it was. With Kshitij Sabnis choosing to drop down the order after his stint behind the stumps, it was Richard Rex and Martin Prowse who strolled out to open the innings and, batting "to orders", took the score to 38 in 16 overs before Martin, suffering from a groin strain, holed out to Tom Cropper off Jonah Munday for 13 (off 56 balls). Enter Aditya Vaidyanathan who was equally watchful, with 10* from 51 balls, helping to achieve the winning target one ball shy of 32 overs. Richard's "epic" innings of 30* from 85 balls was blocking and blocking and waiting to dispatch a rare loose ball to the boundary; it lasted 105 mins.
Victory was ours, in a game played in a friendly manner. Spare a thought for Linton, having lost players to their 1st XI, and batting poorly their efforts bowling and fielding restricting Romsey to 74 runs in 32 overs was a truely fantastic effort led by - you guessed it - Jonah Munday (1/16 in 8 overs) and Josh Newman (0/16 in 8 overs), with club secretary Phil Stratton (0/0 in 2 overs) at the end proving that he excels in cricket as well as snooker!!! It was frustrating for Linton that they could pick up only 1 point from the whole game in a season with which we can fully empathise with. So the Romsey Town "juggernaut" rolls on, with 3 wins from 4 games, to Parker's Piece next week, after which our fate will be a little clearer.