Nomads 238-2 dec beat Buccaneers 100 by 138 runs
Simon Woolfries won the toss and invited the Nomads to make first use of an odd-looking track at St.Paul’s School, Barnes on Sunday. Discretion was certainly in the skipper’s mind as he found himself one man short and nervous of his side’s ability to defend a total.
The first problem was soon solved, however, by a hasty call to a slumbering Andy Close who, magnificently, took the field 45 minutes later.
A small piece of Buccs social history was made as ‘father-in-law’ Richard Gwynn shared the new ball with ‘son-in-law’ Will Metcalfe and a decent job they made of it with Will picking up an early wicket.
The track was playing fine but the outfield wasn’t and value for ground strokes was hard to come by. Pratik Patel and Steve Brandes took up the attack after a dozen overs and the cricket was tight and hard-fought all the way to lunch. The two off spinners bowled very few loose balls and opener Sachin Puri,joined by skipper Brockton at 50-2, played with due caution. Lunch was taken at 108-2 after 37 overs.
Puri and Brockton continued in similar vein long into the afternoon and couldn’t be parted by any Buccs combinations which, admittedly, comprised largely successively older purveyors of off spin.
Patel completed a marathon spell of 19 impressive overs while ‘Rhino’ Brandes returned to deliver no fewer than of 17.3 accurate overs. The two Nomads both completed their tons during an epic stand of 188 before the declaration at 3.40pm after 60.3 overs to post a
daunting total on such a long, slow, outfield.
Right from the start of their reply, it was clear the Buccs were going to struggle to cope with the impressive new ball pairing of Jared Schmidt and Sajjad Shawl, who took two early wickets for very few before tea.
After the interval the situation deteriorated alarmingly as numbers 3,4 and 5 were all bowled while barely bothering the scorer. At 31-5 the skipper joined Pratik Patel and, with the opening bowlers out of the attack,
mounted a fightback. While your correspondent dug in Patel struck the ball cleanly until holing out for a well-made 32 just before the start of the last 20 overs.
Rhino settled in with his captain and it looked as if the match could yet be saved. However, this notion was snuffed out by an unfortunate run out featuring a determined ‘charge’ for which his species is feared and which took the skipper by complete surprise.
The excellent Shawl was soon brought back to administer the coup de grace and bowl the Buccs out for exactly 100 with 6 overs left. It could have been worse!
Nomads innings
M Plant lbw b Metcalfe 5
S Puri not out 100
M Budgen lbw b Brandes 23
S Brockton not out 100
extras 10
TOTAL (2 wkts – dec) 238
Buccs bowling:
Metcalfe 9-0-43-1
Gwynn 6-2-17-0
Patel 19-3-63-0
Brandes 17.3-0-62-1
Bryant 6-0-16-0
Woolfries 2-0-16-0
Buccaneers innings
B Cullen b Steele 10
Subir Chakravarti b Shawl 1
Metcalfe b Schmidt 7
Sujay Chakravarti b Schmidt 0
P Battley b Shawl 0
P Patel c Puri b Smith 32
S Woolfries run out 22
S Brandes lbw b Plant 10
R Gwynn not out 1
A Close b Shawl 0
J Bryant c Smith b Shawl 0
extras 17
TOTAL 100
Nomads bowling:
Schmidt 10-2-17-2
Shawl 10-3-14-4
Steele 11-3-20-1
Smith 7-0-34-1
Budgen 5-1-8-0
Plant 2-1-2-1