Eltham CC

Match Report

Match report Eltham CC Vs Footscray CC

At Eltham College, a new look team Eltham with stand in captain Pete Fisher and without a handful of senior players missing mostly due to holiday commitments descended to take on Footscray Cricket Club. Most of the season team Eltham had been faced with challenges on the lines of extending their 'winning run' or lately 'unbeaten run'. Coming into this game the challenge was to cut the losing run to as short as possible after loss against Swancombe (courtesy: Amit's level headed and thrilling run chase) the weekend before.

Stand in skipper started well by winning the toss and putting the opposition in to give our sprightly bunch of young bowlers (okay some of them might not be so young as suggested) a shot at their target. Tailor made overcast conditions excited our bowlers and even the dipping mercury right in the middle of English summer could not manage to faze them as they embarked on their task of restricting Footscray CC to a meagre score. Tanveer and Colin enjoyed the conditions and bowled superb opening spells, regularly beating the bat. They actually bowled more maiden overs then not to show for their consistency and commitment. Unfortunately, they did not take any wickets as Footscray opening batsmen played and missed on a number of occasions but continued scoring runs at a snail's pace (no exaggeration - they were literally saving a test match with two days to go).

Despite having seen the weather and opening bowlers off, Footscray batsmen were still not ready to score brisk runs. Ricky's reliable loop & swing and Derek's regularly well-flighted and tossed up leg spinners were called on next by the skipper in a desperate effort to entice the batsmen in doing something different. Ricky continued being economical from his end while Derek decided to go all out for wickets. While he went for some runs he repeatedly made the batsmen to play airy-fairy shots including one from opening batsman (Godwin) that went straight to point fielder (your reporter) where it was held comfortably.

After Ricky's unrewarded marathon effort and Derek's successful spell yielding a precious wicket, skipper turned to Ian and Imran. It was not long before Ian induced a nick from Vidler Junior that disappeared in Andy's gloves behind the stumps. Now with his appealing for everything, Imran probably on purpose, does not give you this impression of being a thinking cricketer but with a ball in his hand he was out there to prove his critics wrong. For a start look at this strategy he came up with, having witnessed little reward, for proper line and length stuff, he decided to spray the ball in all sort of directions.

Now this is where sharp reflexes (a refreshing change from last game, where arguably a number of missed chances in the field ended our unbeaten run) handed bowlers, wickets they were looking for, to further stem the already non existing flow of runs. First Ricky pouched a two handed stunner at first slip in front of his nose to send back Vidler Senior (top scorer for Footscray with 36 runs) of Imran's bowling. Now this ball was travelling, mind you, Ricky did not have much choice but to catch it - his eyes wide open expression at the time said it all. Then Tan at mid-off held (well, sort of) a catch, the ball popped out after hitting the palm of his hand but he had the presence of mind to use his forearms and belly to clutch the ball to stop it from getting to the ground.

Fordham and Jerome tried to hit out but it was too little too late as Imran bowled Fordham with an inswinging yorker, perhaps the only ball he bowled on the stumps, of course a trick that the batsmen could not do anything about. Jerome also had to go soon when he managed to miss hit one that went high in the air only for the point fielder (again your reporter) to get under it and bag another catch. By now Imran had removed all the question marks over his cricketing intelligence by successfully implementing, 'a strategy of spraying the ball' that returned brilliant and his best bowling figures in a match for the club of 3-0-11-4. In all Eltham bowled 47 overs but Footscray innings never really managed to sustain any momentum and ended with 111 runs, which seemed a woefully inadequate score.

After lovely tea, it was Eltham's batsmen turn to face up to the Footscray bowlers in tricky conditions. Skipper Pete and Asjad opened the innings. The wicket was quite spongy often resulting in tennis ball like bounce, which apparently excited Footscray bowlers. Both the opening bowlers were bowling short and slightly wide of the stumps. Eltham openers started by mostly leaving those rising albeit harmless deliveries. Both the openers registered their first runs by edging towards the vacant third man region. Unfortunately, what seemed like a 'let's repeatedly bowl short' strategy by Footscray bowlers worked when Vidler Junior pitched one up to surprise Pete who could not control his stroke and played it on to his stumps.

Richard was next in and quite unusually found it hard to lay his bat on the out swinging deliveries and was lucky with a couple of close LBW shouts. To their credit bowlers were bowling well at this stage but it was not long before they forgot all about bowling straight and reverted back to bowling short and wide outside the stumps. By now both batsmen were well set and started to cash in by playing a lot of cut shots on either side of the point fielder and the result was a flurry of boundaries. While Richard was mostly stroking the ball on his front foot with an occasional biff over the mid-on fielder, Asjad was content with waiting for the ball on his back foot as he also unfurled number of strokes by playing the ball at the very last minute possible while continuing to target the cover point boundary. Just when Mr Page was dominating the bowlers he was unlucky as he mistimed a pitched up delivery, which went high in the air for the bowler Sage to hold on to a well judged, catch.

Colin was the next man in - who happily took a backseat as Asjad went berserk scoring freely and soon brought up his fifty. Apart from the opening Footscray bowlers the rest lacked sting and both Colin and Asjad were determined not to miss out. Asjad slowed down once the end was in sight to ensure a not out against his name, Colin, meanwhile, was providing solid support until the deal had been sealed and a convincing victory was registered. It would be unfair to complete the report without acknowledging Pete's effort as captain. He was always in control of the situation whether it was setting the field, changing bowlers, motivating both bowlers & fielders and even a calming word for batsmen during his umpiring stint. In the absence of regulars, a great job done.

Trivia

Asjad could not do much wrong during his innings but there was one silly moment of note, which luckily came just before the start of his innings. Pete was ready to go in and Asjad keen to join him merrily started bouncing towards the pitch only for this journey to be cut short when Pete articulated something like ''Don't tell me you are going to bat without putting your pads on''.

Reporting: Asjad Mir