Following the cancellation by Elstree, the Goodwill were left
without a fixture. Luckily, late on Friday afternoon, we managed
to pick-up a game against Denham CC. We made the short journey
with a slightly changed side as Sachin and Trigger were both
unavailable. Darren made a welcome return, Darpan kept his place
and Marcus returned to the ranks. Sexy Specs Priyesh was still
absent (possibly getting fitted up for a cravat) as were the
longer-term absentees. We also saw the return of Derek Desmond to
the sidelines at least, and thankfully, Angus was on hand to help
him with the scorebook.
An interesting looking pitch and a short boundary on one side made
the toss potentially crucial, but it didn't matter, as Ollie lost
and the Goodwill were invited to bat first. Andrew Callanan hit 45
and looked in fine-touch until a strange dismissal, putting on 46
for the first wicket with Marcus. There were several useful
contributions and partnerships all the way down. Following a
consolidation period, the Goodwill tried to accelerate and
finished their 40 overs on 190-9. We also witnessed some
telepathic running between Das and Darpan (it's all in the eyes).
Ideally the Wanderers were looking for 200+ but had something to
bowl at.
The Denham reply saw the Goodwill employ a new tactic and opened
from both ends with leg-spin for a few overs. Denham however, got
off to a decent start, in fact a very good start, and were 72-0
after less than 10 overs. The crucial first breakthrough came from
captain Ollie Sayers who bowled very well, bowling his 8 overs
off-the-reel. The Goodwill were helped by some excellent ground
fielding and solid catching, with Darren, Tim and Paul Hiscock (no
that's really his name) all to the fore. Gareth was against in
fine form behind the sticks notching another 2 catches to move
ever closer to that 100-dismissals mark.
As the innings progressed, Denham were always ahead of the rate,
but the Goodwill kept chipping away. Denham's captain came in at
number 6 and seemed to be anchoring his side towards the finishing
line. A partnership of 55 for the 8th wicket had firmly swung the
game in Denham's favour, until a slower ball by Correa led to a
skied shot from Denham's skipper, and a superb catch from the Ginger
Ninja Darren Westwood. Next ball, with the batsman having crossed,
a thin edge was pouched by Gareth behind the wicket, and in the
blink of an eye, the game had changed completely and two new
batsman were at the crease, 9 wickets were down and still 20 were
needed to win.
Still all results were possible as Denham kept chipping away and
the runs required came down into single-figures. The short
boundary kept things on a knife-edge, until Das produced a
well-flighted leg spinner, which kept a touch-low, and a bottom
edge from the batsman ricocheted onto the stumps to give the
Goodwill the victory by 5 runs.
This victory was a real team performance for the Goodwill and,
despite some massive shots early on and Denham accelerating away
at the start of their innings, the spirit, skill and nerve shown
by the boys was fantastic. The belief was always there, and after
being on the wrong end of a narrow result at Ruislip the week
before, it was great to come out on the right end of a narrow
result this week. However, the big positive was that it was a very
enjoyable game, and we seem to have picked up a good fixture for
the future as Denham have invited us back next year.
When picking up games through the Club Cricket Conference, it is
always a bit of a gamble as we've found in the past, in terms of
matching teams strengths. This time however, we managed to find a
team who were similar to us and it produced a wonderful game.
Onwards and upwards then and a trip to Southgate next week. The
well-groomed Priyesh, well-slow Sachin (go-karts and girlfriend)
and well-happy Trigger will all return, with Colin, Andy and
Darpan all unavailable. Hopefully the Goodwill can continue
playing as well as they have so far this season as the consistency
means that we are always going to give ourselves a chance in
matches.
