Theale & Tilehurst 2nd XI vs Crowthorne 1st September 2007

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Following a losing draw last week our fate in terms of finishing second was out of our hands; the scenario going in to this game was that we needed four more points than Woodley to go above them and four points to guarantee third above Crowthorne. The problem with this later statistic being that Crowthorne also wanted to bat first to have any chance of overtaking us; when they won the toss they inevitably elected to bat. This meant the best we could do was win the game and hope that Woodley slipped up against Bradfield.

Os opened the bowling with Aygzz and it was like watching two different games; Os bowling an immaculate line and length and causing the batsmen problems whilst Aygzz bowled like he normally does. Hampshire went early caught at short mid-wicket off Os and when he dismissed Stent and Cronje with successive balls we looked like we were in business.

However, the Crowthorne middle order proved to be resilient and a middle passage of the innings was played out whereby Rog and I were taking the occasional wicket whilst the Crowthorne batters kept the score ticking over at about 3 an over.

It was left to Os to come back and pick up the last two wickets for him to finish with the impressive figures of 5-24 off fourteen overs. With Crowthorne all out for 161 it seemed that we were well placed to win the game.

When Micky and Rog had got the score to 105-1 this position seemed to have been strengthened but there was then a T&T collapse as we went to 125-7; the batters seeming to think we were well behind the rate and they had to get on with it when we never needed more than five an over and they had time to play themselves in.

Rags looked like he was going to do the job single handed as he made 38 and he was still there when the scores were level and 2 wickets were left. However, he was caught at mid-off trying to clear the tight ring of fielders for the winning run and it was left to the last pair. After four dot balls and to the second ball of the last over (the 47th of the innings) Tim was lbw to Long who in the process completed an impressive fivefer.

So, a tie and another in a run of close league games between the 2nds and Crowthorne.

What was the news from Woodley vs. Bradfield? Well, in some ways it was good news as Woodley had beaten Bradfield, albeit only by 11 runs, and in the process had got sufficient points for our result to have been academic. Not too much to regret then about this result in particular although combined with the games against Mortimer West End and Berkshire County Sports we were very close to having finished second quite comfortably.

The 2nds finished third in Division 3 in their farewell season in the Berkshire League; the odd thing being that whilst it is the highest ever league finish achieved by the 2nds we still felt that we’d under-achieved. It seems that in the final quarter of the season we just ran out of a bit of momentum and perhaps a bit of luck.

THEALE AND TILEHURST CC SCORECARD
Home Team Theale and Tilehurst Away Team Crowthorne
Date of Match 1st September 2007 Played at Theale
Team Result Team
Result Tied
1st Innings of Crowthorne
Name How Out Who Bowler 4's 6's Score
1 N Stent ct P Mead O Mahmood 20
2 G Hampshire ct M Mason O Mahmood 0
3 Northall  ct M Mehta B Cooper 23
4 Cronje bowled O Mahmood 0
5 T Charles bowled R Puri 33
6 R Stent hit wicket B Cooper 31
7 Gopie not out 13
8 A Elrick lbw R Puri 0
9 Kemp run out 18
10 A Long bowled O Mahmood 7
11 Younas lbw O Mahmood 0
Byes 8
Leg Byes 2
Wides 6
No Balls 0
Extras 16
Wickets 10 Total 161
Bowling O M R W
1 O Mahmood 14 5 24 5
2 P Ager 3 0 17 0
3 M Mason 3 1 16 0
4 B Cooper 15 0 70 2
5 R Puri 8 1 22 2
6
7
8
Fall of Wicket
Score Outgoing Bat Stand of
1 1 1
2 37 36
3 37 0
4 51 14
5 111 60
6 119 8
7 120 1
8 143 23
9 158 15
10 161 3
2nd Innings of Theale and Tilehurst 2nds
Name How Out Who Bowler 4's 6's Score
1 E Ellis bowled T Charles 12
2 M Mehta ct - A Elrick 48
3 R Puri lbw A Long 39
4 N Bhatt ct Cronje A Long 4
5 P Mead ct Northall A Long 3
6 H Ali ct Northall A Elrick 0
7 M Mason ct Hampshire A Elrick 38
8 O Mahmood lbw A Long 1
9 P Ager run out 5
10 B Cooper not out 0
11 T Beck lbw A Long 0
Byes 2
Leg Byes 1
Wides 4
No Balls 4
Extras 11
Wickets 10 Total 161
Bowling O M R W
1 T Charles 9 4 17 1
2 Kemp 9 1 32 0
3 A Long 15 3 34 5
4 Northall 5 1 27 0
5 A Elrick 9 0 46 3
6
7
8
Fall of Wicket
Score Outgoing Bat Stand of
1 33 1 33
2 105 3 72
3 112 2 7
4 115 4 3
5 115 6 0
6 119 5 4
7 123 8 4
8 152 9 29
9 161 7 9
10 161 11 0