A new venue for the annual Buccaneers versus Nomads fixture found both wandering teams arriving at a Wimbledon CC 2nd XI ground in Raynes Park, nestled perfectly next to the busy A3 and SW railway mainline to the South coast.
As has become the norm this ‘summer’, it was a cold, windy and overcast setting which made deciding on whether to bat or bowl a slightly harder decision. Luckily the skipper lost the toss and the Nomads elected to bat first. With Hamish choosing to steam in down the hill, Pexton had to make do with the other end. Both bowlers started well, especially Robertson who quickly found he was getting some assistance from the pitch. Kandampully fell to a pretty unplayable delivery aided by the pitch in only Hamish’s 2nd over for 4 runs. The wickets then continued to steadily fall for Hamish in his 8 over spell racking up his first Buccs 5-fer!! Some absolute jaffers in the pick of the bowled batsmen, more often than not being bowled just clipping off stump. Glorious to watch. The Nomads other opening batsmen, Pascall played diligently, making a hard fought 40 only to be bowled by Marsh’s bamboozling leggies. The rest of the wickets were picked up by Ollie Robertson (2) Angus Berry and the stalwart Rob Rydon, who showed everyone watching, he still has the ball on a string. Nomads all out for 89.
The chat at lunch from the tactical maestro Tom Fletcher was that this was a very competitive score on such a pitch. It turned out to be a very accurate observation. Rydon and Fletcher opened the batting facing the very tricky Shawl from the top end. Shawl’s first ball to Fletcher was a no ball and then with his 2nd delivery, Tom snicked off. Rob batted bravely in such testing conditions as a number of Buccaneers came and went. He finally fell, another victim of Shawl for 12. It began to look pretty dire as the Buccs slipped to 46-7. Enter Charles Pexton. Charles came in and started to make it look relatively easy, scoring freely and quickly moving the score 72 in a one sided partnership with Clark. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be and Shawl picked up his 6th wicket, bowling Pexton for a quick fire 23. It was then left to Clark and Metcalfe to see if they could scrape the win. They couldn’t, Metcalfe ran Clark out after only 2 balls and that was that. A few beers were enjoyed post match and the discussion was directed towards the potential Buccs tour in September….
Result: Nomads won by 17 runs
Toss: Nomads CC
Umpires:Nick Stevenson &
Scorers:Several
NOMADS CC Innings
V Kandampully* bowled H Robertson 4
T Pascall bowled Marsh 40
S Khokar bowled H Robertson 4
B Rose c ? b H Robertson 0
M Walker bowled H Robertson 1
S Shawl c & b H Robertson 8
R Eldridge+ bowled Rydon 0
R Bonneywell bowled D Robertson 13
S Chakravarty lbw b Berry 1
C Page not out 5
C Bartlett bowled D Robertson 0
Extras (b5,lb3,w4,nb0) 11
TOTAL (All out,37 overs) 89
Fow:1-7(1),2-16(3),3-16(4),4-29(5),5-45(6),6-61(2),7-61(7),8-74(9),9-89(8),10-89(11).
Bowling
H Robertson 8-2-25-5
Pexton 5-1-7-0
Marsh 6-3-16-1
Rydon 7-2-16-1
Berry 6-3-5-1
D Robertson 5-2-12-2
BUCCANEERS CC Innings
R Rydon bowled Shawl 6
T Fletcher c Eldridge b Shawl 0
M Sutton c Kandampully b Shawl 12
A Berry c Rose b Shawl 3
G Clark run out(Chakravarty) 6
O Robertson lbw b Shawl 0
H Robertson bowled Bartlett 9
A Marsh bowled Bartlett 4
C Pexton bowled Shawl 23
W Metcalfe* not out 0
Extras (b2,lb1,w6,nb0) 9
TOTAL (All out,28.3 overs) 72
Fow:1-2(2),2-17(3),3-26(4),4-26(1),5-28(6),6-42(7),7-46(8),8-73(9),9-73(5)
Bowling
Shawl 14.3-7-23-6
Bonneywell 2-0-16-0
Chakravarty 6-0-9-0
Bartlett 6-1-24-0