Theale & Tilehurst 1st XI vs Sonning 12th August 2006

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When you are hovering around the relegation battle what you don’t need is a trip to the league leaders and champions elect but this is what confronted us as we made the short trip to Sonning. On winning the toss the Sonning captain had little hesitation in putting us in to bat on what was a surprisingly green pitch given the prevailing weather conditions and the brownness of the outfield.

Ghulum Abbas is arguably the leading bowler in the Berkshire League and he bowled a testing opening spell which included the wicket of James with the last ball off his fourth over. Cat was playing Abbas very well to this point; exclusively from the non-striker’s end.

Cat and Khadim steadied the innings and took the score to 50 before Khadim fell to Troughton. This prompted something of a collapse as the innings subsided to 83-6 and it looked like we would struggle to raise a meaningful total or get many batting points. Fortunately the lower middle order was able to rally the innings with Doc getting yet another 19, Osman an excellent 35 not out and me 26 by dint of timing the ball so badly there was always two to any boundary fielder.

167 was unlikely to be enough to win the game but it did give us 4 batting points and the chance of picking up some bowling points as well.

The start of the Sonning innings was delayed by some in depth research in to how many T&T players it takes to push a sightscreen down a slope. Jamil was struggling on his own so Khadim went to help him but strangely they elected to take turns to try and move the sightscreen rather than push together. Finally they decided to push at the same time and snail like progress was made moving the screen in to place.

In the previous game against Sonning Doc had taken the first over and conceded 17 runs, he was probably grateful therefore that Lemmy opted to take the first over and perhaps unsurprised when Mark Richards put the first ball back over the sightscreen for six. Doc took the second over of the innings and bowled a maiden to Clayson and then retreated to fine leg perhaps reflecting on the benefit of his experience.

Having mentioned that Doc and Lemmy opened the bowling together this is perhaps a good opportunity to put to bed the rumour that Lemmy is Doc’s son as was suggested by one of the Sonning opening batsman. The short, stocky and prematurely grey-haired Doc was indeed so shocked that anyone could think that the tall, thin and fair-haired bowler at the other end was his son that he forgot to take offence at the suggestion that he was old enough to be Lemmy’s dad.

The Sonning innings got off to a good start that was helped by Doc picking up a freak and possibly unique injury and having to retire from the field. I say possibly unique because it is of course entirely possible that someone else has strained their hamstring taking a drink of water.

The Sonning innings had made it to 57 before the first wicket fell when Jamil bowled Richards behind his legs which brought Nas Hussain, once of Tilehurst and T&T, to the crease. Unfortunately his batting form hasn’t waned since we last saw him play and whilst he was a bit scratchy to start with he was soon playing fluently. He and Clayson took Sonning to the brink of victory before Os picked up a second wicket to give us an extra point when Clayson was caught at point by Cat.

Whilst 5 points from this game wasn’t a disaster surprise victories for Sandhurst and Swindon mean that the bottom of the premier league table has got tighter and our remaining games, particularly those against Shinfield and Swindon, take on extra significance.