Report by Cam Petrie:
This weeks Romsey outfit looked set to be a nice combination of "the old and the new" with our now regular mix of old, recent and new members bolstered by the return of older hands Faruk Kara (after some weeks out to illness and sore teeth), and Nick Clarke (after some years out to retirement and golf). Unfortunately by game time our erstwhile balanced team was not quite so, having been weakened (at least in the faster bowling department) by the late week request by Saad Shoukat to up sticks and move off to play for Madingley (more on that in a future report). As a result, when we came on to bowl, Stephan van Eeden (1/44 off 8 overs) was partnered by a less zippy but no less effective Andy Owen (0/47 off 8 overs).
Andy made the strategic request that the CamKerala card be signed before kick-off, so that it was at least clear which XI we were going to be playing before we hit the field. Stephan was typically miserly in his opening spell (going for 0/11 off 4 over), but unfortunately the CamKerala openers took a liking to Andy, hitting him for 17 off his first two overs before he bowled a maiden and then took himself off. The dual change saw AP Graeme Wood (1/30 off 8 overs) arcing in his off breaks from one end and Catherine Owen flighting in mortar bombs from the other. True to recent form, Catherine immediately nailed a breakthrough with a driven catch to Andy at cover. Graeme soon bowled the other opener, and Catherine then completely outsmarted the left handed CamKerala number 3, first marooning him on the crease and then drawing him forward and beating the bat, before CamPetrie completed a sharp stumping (and thankfully the batsman walked as although he was well short, he wasn't given out by the square leg umpire). Graeme and Catherine kept the stranglehold and slowed CamKerala from about 5 to about 4 runs an over, leaving them clamped tight at 85/3 at drinks.
Although there was seemingly clear agreement about what constituted a wide before game time, this seemed to change regularly during the CamKerala innings, such that balls well outside off were often not called (and were more often helpfully hit directly into the ground by the batsman), while those going down leg were seemingly judged at random, changing not just between umpire, but also with the same umpire. The variability of the decisions lead to much chuntering and murmuring, but the rules were being set for our innings to follow.
Catherine and Graeme continued with the ball after drinks, with Catherine finishing on a wicket maiden to see CamKerala stalled at 92/4 in the 23rd over. The wicket was a final looped masterpiece that pitched and spun into the top off off stump, with Cam narrowly managing to avoid catching the ball (and making it a no ball) before it hit the stumps. The quality of the ball was demonstrated by the batman standing in absolute disbelief before trudging his way off, having resisted similar balls for 5 overs.
Andy and Stephan were brought back for a few overs to try and widen the crack, but both came in for stick, so we reverted to the slow bowling plan, with Faruk Kara (0/37 off 5 overs) and Huw Davies (1/17 off 3 overs) in tandem. Although largely following the "firmly stated" request that they bowl outside off stump, neither was able to stem the flow, and the CamKerala 5 and 6 set about building an 85 run partnership compiled of blocks, singles and big hit boundaries. Unfortunately, we also contributed through brain-fade overthrows where balls were fired in too hard, high and/or wide.
Having maintained pressure in the first 23 overs, it wasn't until the 36th over that Stephan was rewarded with a wicket in his fourth spell, when one more big hit was taken by Olly Rex at long on, and the 39th when Huw drew a mis-hit that threatened to fall into no mans land at mid on before bellowed calls that it was his catch saw Huw take off and somehow hold the catch while running away from the stumps and being completely off balance. A run out involving Olly, Andy and Cam in the last over gave us a chance to hold them to under 200, but some massive last minute sixes pushed CamKerala out to 213/7.
A resurrected version of a Romsey "old firm" Cam Petrie and Nick Clarke came out to bat and set about playing themselves in and punishing anything loose. CamKerala tried to match our success with slow bowling, but their experiment didn't really work, but what did work was their opener Joseph who soon found a teasing line with the ball swinging away just outside off stump.
There was a lot of chat in the field, and when Nick appropriately walked off to leg when Joseph called out to a fielder when about to start his run up, the bowler went "full tanty", walked off to a super long run up, hurled a piece of rubbish randomly off into the outfield, and then ran in hard and delievered an efffort ball that was basically a throw and managed to entirely miss the pitch and gift us a wide that went to the boundary. His next ball was not much different, but the keeper managed to gather.
We were sitting well placed ahead of the rate in the ninth over before Cam (13 off 25 balls) completed Chapter 9 of his forthcoming 2019 batting memoir tentatively entitled You Were Looking So Good by leaving a string of balls in the corridor of uncertainty, having some "play and miss" drives, and then choosing to leave one more, but inadvertantly wafting his bat to salute the ball on the way past, resulting in a little edge and a catch behind. Nick (24 off 36 balls) was looking threatening, managing to smoke a few boundaries out of both the middle and the not quite middle, before he was drawn into the play and miss game, and was then bowled. AP Adi Jain (7 off 24 balls) had a slightly turgid stay at the crease before also nicking off, but we were able to consolidate when Graeme Wood set up shop with Olly Rex, and at drinks we were looking just fine at 102/3, 17 runs ahead of CamKerala at the same point. Subsequently there was some discussion about the drinks being spiked as we found ourselves at a far less fine 106/6 after 23 overs (i.e. a mini Romsey collapse TM). Graeme (10 off 14 balls) seemed to want to kick on and lofted an easy catch, Claude Warnick hit one too well and in the air, and Stephan was bowled, all while Olly was watching on in increasing horror at the non-strikers end.
Thankfully Catherine (5 off 25 balls) and Olly (25 off 34 balls) were able to put the brakes on the wickets, and Olly managed a few more boundaries before he too fell to the fairly soft catch malaise. Huw (13 off 25 balls) then joined Catherine for a mildly restorative partnership before Catherine was caught by a blinder at gully, and Huw was our final soft catch candidate, also popping up a simple chance. Once again, we found ourselves fairly well short of the victory target with 6 overs to go, but in clear sight of a fourth batting point. As is now becoming common, another version of a Romsey "old firm" in the form of Messers Kara (1* off 15 balls) and A. Owen (22* off 26 balls) pushed us through. In the end, we made the 160 easily, at least partly thanks to the bewildering decision by CamKerala to give various part timers the ball rather than going for the win, and Andy was able to pull of some classic "Andy shots" through to the leg side boundary to push us out to 175/9.
Although we are now masters of the art of wringing out as many bonus points as possible from a loss (today 3 for bowling and 4 for batting), it would be nice to convert our robust starts into a win. Comparing the 20 over mark scores today, we were on top at drinks in both innings. However, our scord card had several major differences to CamKerala's: they sent down an epic 53 extras, largely in the form of wides - so they helped us more than we helped them; much to Russ's consternation (because is messed with his score sheet) they used nine bowlers - seemingly out of a desire to give everyone a go rather than go for the win; and most tellingly, while both sides had a number of middling partnerships, CamKerala had one big one of 85 runs, involving a batsman who hit 50 and a who hit 41. Long partnerships are neither rocket science nor a magic formula, but they have been in short supply for us this year.