Captain Couldrey fresh from bouts of gout and cruising one of which may have been caused by the other returned to skipper and was at the toss, no sign of the blazer but we hold out hope for its return. On what was meant to be a scorcher the skipper won the toss and elected to bat.
Vice-captain Warne and the returning Adam Greenway set about their task well on a challenging track although assisted by short boundaries and a quick outfield. Warne was just settled into his work when he got a ball that pitched in the bowler’s half and bowled him just below ankle high for 12. Pulkit Verman joined Greenway at the crease, but a sharp bit of fielding did for him, and he was run out for 4. Thistleton looked assured and threatening but he somehow chipped a full toss to short third man who snaffled the catch despite struggling with an injury. Greenway marched on and had the rare moment of celebrating his 50 twice, the first time being thwarted by a very late call of leg bye by Pulkit who was umpiring.
Ronnie Buddin much like Thistleton engineered a ball that should have disappeared into the surrounding area back to the bowler and Hayes’ good platform suddenly started to look wobbly. Greenway then put his foot on the accelerated slashing the ball to all parts and kicked the score on before being caught well in the deep for 76. Rayyan Ali fresh from school exams looked assured with the bat and contributed a useful 14. Millard and Couldrey both departed for not many but useful hitting from Luca Baker and Dammika Silva including a lusty 6 for Silva left Hayes defending 181 which with a good bowling performance seemed very defendable. The pick of the Blue Star bowlers was Mayank Sharma who bowled 9-4-18-2 his left arm seam providing a serious challenge to the Hayes batters.
Hayes were hoping to get off to a good start and they certainly did when Luca Baker bowled arguably the ball of the game first ball of the second innings, swinging in the ball hit the pitch jagged off the seam and hit the top of off stump dismissing Prateek Chowdhari for a duck. Blue Star started to recover well, and Hayes felt that they had the breakthrough when a throw from the keeper hit the stumps at the non-strikers end after a scampered single. It is fair to say the fielders felt the batter was a long way short of his ground, but the player umpire did not agree, and the game carried on. Baker was unfortunate to not get his second wicket with a catch going down.
Replacing Rayyan Ali at the football pitch end was ‘Naughty’ Tom Davis with the bit between his teeth. NT was fired up reminiscent of Bob Willis circa Headingly 81. Davis dismissed the other opener with Captain Couldrey taking a steepler at long on, making it look a lot easier than it was. Davis then ran through top order dismissing batters 3,4,6 and 7 all bowled the stumps being sent flying with each dismissal. Gajendra Singh (30) and Animesh Bhattacharya (26) were massive scalps who could have taken the game away from Hayes. Baker came back on for a second spell and join Davis in attacking the stumps, Mayank Sharma looked like he was going to add to his bowling performance with a big knock with the bat. Unfortunately, for him he mistimed a slog sweep against Baker was given out lbw for 16. Baker snicked off Atif Sultan at 8 for 2 and bowled Touseef Mohammed for 1. But, he was not quite able to snaffle his fifer.
Blue Star’s tail started to wag with Grimsley and Blackman starting to unload some shots, but just when it looked like they could pull off an unlikely upset Buddin drew out a false shot from Blackman who dragged a wide ball onto the stumps to complete the victory for Hayes.
For the first time this season we had a presso and as part of the match report it was decided that Tom Davis, using the old Robot Wars scoring system: style, control, damage and aggression was the player of the match for his 5-28 however upon reflection and 24 hours removed I think it is fair to say the PoTM accolade should be shared as Adam Greenway’s 76 was also exceptional in a game where the next highest score was 30. Next Week, the 3s complete the first half of the season hosting Bickley Park hoping to keep the good run of form going.
Notable performances:
BSCC:
H(K)CC:
