Theale and Tilehurst Friendly XI vs West Reading 9th September 2007

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Report by Fingers

We’ve had some strange games on Sundays in recent weeks and this was no exception as a quick glance at the scorecard will suggest.

West Reading batted first and whilst at one end the excellent Davidson was starting to win his battle against Bob at the other end Osman was taking wickets at a rate of knots; in fact he dismissed all of batsman 2-5 without them scoring a run to leave the score at 20-4. Was this going to be London Theatres all over again?

Osman retired from the attack and after a brief rally by the batters Arsalan took the fifth wicket with the score on 56. Before the game we had been talking about West Reading as one of those teams that can score either 120 or 270 seemingly just as easily as the other; on this occasion it looked like it was going to be the former.

How wrong we were. Whilst it would be fair to say that Sajjad rode his luck at times it should also be said that for the most part he struck the ball very cleanly and very hard to most parts of the ground; all the bowlers were to suffer at his hands. With Davidson playing an excellent anchor role at the other end Sajjad was able to play with some freedom as he made a century in a partnership of 192 for the sixth wicket.

It was only with the return of Osman to the attack that he was dismissed; he soon followed this with the wicket of Ahmed to bring up his 300th wicket for Theale and Tilehurst in senior cricket. This is an outstanding achievement for someone who is still in his very early twenties and he is the fifth person to reach the land mark for the club.

As it was we were left with an unlikely looking 262 to chase after the tea interval; or something in that region as it’s quite difficult to make the scorebook add up to anything remotely consistent. To get close we needed a good start and we started well with the fifty coming up in the seventh over.

However, the run rate then slowed dramatically and wickets started to fall on a regular basis. When it reached 101-7 it looked like we would be rolled over cheaply. Osman was in good form with the bat as well though and he and I put on 56 for the 8th wicket; Osman going for 35 as he tried to lift the pace. I managed to remind myself that I could bat with a late forty and Bob’s was the final wicket to fall in the last over but not before he had bludgeoned one straight four.

THEALE AND TILEHURST CC SCORECARD
Home Team Theale and Tilehurst Away Team West Reading
Date of Match 9th September 2007 Played at Theale
Team Result Team
Result West Reading beat Theale and Tilehurst
1st Innings of West Reading
Name How Out Who Bowler 4's 6's Score
1 A Davidson not out 83
2 S Saddiq ct & b O Mahmood 0
3 A Hussain ct T Beck O Mahmood 0
4 I Mahmood bowled O Mahmood 0
5 S Asghar ct R Puri O Mahmood 0
6 M Shakeel ct O Mahmood A Ahmed 15
7 Sajjad ct A Ahmed O Mahmood 103
8 I Ahmed bowled O Mahmood 15
9 Nabeel not out 4
10
11
Byes 12
Leg Byes 4
Wides 25
No Balls 1
Extras 42
Wickets 7 Total 262
Bowling O M R W
1 R Williams 8 0 44 0
2 O Mahmood 9 3 45 6
3 A Ahmed 5 0 36 1
4 M Mason 6 0 34 0
5 B Cooper 5 0 42 0
6 R Puri 2 0 17 0
7 G Jones 5 0 28 0
8
Fall of Wicket
Score Outgoing Bat Stand of
1 7 2 7
2 11 3 4
3 20 4 9
4 20 5 0
5 56 6 36
6 248 7 192
7 258 8 10
8
9
10
2nd Innings of Theale and Tilehurst
Name How Out Who Bowler 4's 6's Score
1 A Ahmed bowled I Ahmed 1 0 4
2 R Puri ct I Mahmood Nabeel 5 0 25
3 H Ali bowled Nabeel 3 0 13
4 J Morris ct I Ahmed A Hussain 0 0 3
5 J Everitt bowled M Shakeel 0 0 2
6 M Mason ct I Mahmood Sajjad 1 0 9
7 O Mahmood ct S Asghar A Davidson 4 0 35
8 G Jones bowled S Saddiq 1 0 4
9 B Cooper bowled I Ahmed 5 0 40
10 T Beck not out 0 0 2
11 R Williams ct & b S Saddiq 1 0 4
Byes 4
Leg Byes 7
Wides 29
No Balls 3
Extras 43
Wickets Total 184
Bowling O M R W
1 Sajjad 3.1 0 6 1
2 I Ahmed 5.5 0 47 2
3 Nabeel 8 2 30 2
4 A Hussain 4 0 22 1
5 M Shakeel 5 1 29 1
6 S Saddiq 7.4 1 27 2
7 A Davidson 4 0 11 1
8 A Khan 2 0 9 0
9 I Mahmood 1 1 0 0
Fall of Wicket
Score Outgoing Bat Stand of
1 6 1 6
2 52 3 46
3 67 4 15
4 69 2 2
5 88 6 19
6 89 5 1
7 101 8 12
8 157 7 56
9 180 9 23
10 184 11 4