Eltham CC

Match Report

Match report Eltham CC Vs Dulwich Wanderers CC

The final of the inaugaural Eltham Twenty/20 Competition saw Eltham power to victory thanks to a fine bowling display from Tanveer, and then good batting from Fisher and Swain. Silverware at last - even if we did buy it ourselves!

After a regulation win in the semi final, the mighty Eltham crossed swords with Dulwich Wanderers in the first and hopefully by no means the last Eltham Twenty20 competition.

Dulwich were riding high after an amazing confidence boosting victory over Old Colfs. To make the competition even more interesting, Dulwich were the old team of yours truly, and were out for revenge over the "defection" of 2008.

The first battle was that of winning the toss, with both teams favoring the run chase, rather than that of setting the target. First blood to Eltham, as Skippy the Skip Skipper yet again won the toss, and put Dulwich into bat.

The Dulwich openers Lessiter and Amis, started as they meant to go on, with Lessiter hero of the semi final (for his 50 in 4 over's) in particularly fine form. This fine form continued as he helped DWCC smashing 21 off of the first couple of over's. Fortunately for Eltham, Ricardo Page was paying sharp attention at mid off, and was ready, albeit only just to get his grubby mits in the way, as Lessiter latched onto another one and attempted on sending yet another tracer bullet to the boundary. Despite being carried back a full two feet by the impact of the ball, Ricardo and his grubby mits held firm, to dismiss Lessiter for a very quick 17. It has to be mentioned, that Richard turned down his team mates high fives and handshakes, complaining that his grubby mits stung a little. Big girl's blouse springs to mind!! Saying that, with his choice of shirts recently, you have to wonder whether he has in fact been wearing blouses, so diverse and odd is his collection of attire...

Moving swiftly onto Dulwich's second wicket, which followed quite promptly when Skippy yorked Amis for 5. These two wickets brought Dulwich's two form players of the season to the crease, and a potential risky period started for Eltham, with yours truly singing the praises of Palmer the DWCC number 4, and hoping that the DWCC number 3, a certain Ed Bisley didn't both start firing on all cylinders. Unfortunately for the new batsmen, only one person was firing on all cylinders, and that was a certain Tanveer "Tantastic" Aslam.

After having taken some stick in the first couple of over's, Tantastic was out for revenge, and revenge is best served as a yorker on middle stump. This, much to the delight of Eltham meant that Ed Bisley departed for a three ball duck, (one ball longer, but the same score as his innings in the first game). Revenge was once again offered by Tantastic to the dangerous Palmer, and this time all that could be offered in response was his back leg, prompting a huge LBW appeal and Palmer a truly classy batsmen departing for 0. Tantastic's fourth and final wicket was yet another bowled, as Lawrence perished in the same way as the junior Bisley, YORKED! Tantastic finished with excellent figures of 4 for 14 off of 4 over's. There's only one word for it, coming to an Oxford Dictionary near you, Tantastic!!

These three quick wickets had brought out the hero of Dulwich's semi final. Unfortunately Lovett was bowled by the new bowler Wouldham. Bulpitt had also by now been brought into the attack. However with Low and Short now at the crease, quite a fruitful stand for Dulwich emerged, with Low hitting a quick fire 29 and Short hitting 25, before being caught off of Ricky's bowling by me A.K.A Middle Bisley/Splinters/Will/Vaseline fingers/Danger Mouse the list of potential nicknames is never ending!!

The dangerous looking Low was still in and going well, when the Skipper resorted to his last option, yes you guessed it, Splinters was brought on to bowl... Fortunately for all concerned, your faithfully correspondent didn't bowl any full tosses on leg stump, and restricted Dulwich to 7 runs off of 1.4 over's, taking the prized wicket of Low. This brought Bisley Senior to the crease, and lead to the odd predicament of having Oldest Son, bowling at Dad, whilst youngest Son umpired!! Confused? Well I am! To make matters worse, there were also two Mrs C Bisley's scoring!!! Bisley senior faced one ball, and managed to run one leg by, leaving him on 0 Not Out, the most successful Bisley innings of the entire day!!

Two run outs by Tan (tastic) brought the Dulwich innings to a conclusion, with Dulwich having set Eltham 106 off of 18.4 over's.

So picking things up from the second ball of the Eltham innings... a traumatic event prevents me from remembering what occurred on the first ball, however some joker has put in the scorebook that Splinters was bowled first ball by Champion, however judging from the way Champion bowled for the rest of his spell, I doubt that somewhat!!

Champion soon picked up the wicket of Page, who from the word go had been trying to finishing the game off in one over. Unfortunately for Page he missed Champions only other straight ball of the game, and departed for 1. These two quick wickets brought the Pete's to the crease with both Fisher and Swain looking good from the word go and putting the DWCC bowlers under pressure early on, with Champion going for 36 in his 4 over's and Palmer for 23 in his 4 over's. This brought Bisley Senior into the attack, with Lawrence at the other end, however unfortunately the boundaries kept coming, with Swain hitting several maximums, and reportedly trying to clear the rugby posts on the neighboring pitch! Skippy Swain, in his charitable Aussie manor, offered a couple of opportunities for Dulwich to practice their catching, fortunately it seems more practice is required!! Fisher was eventually trapped LBW by the new bowler Short, however this was not enough, as the following over Wouldham took a quick single to put Swain back on strike, where Skippy duly obliged, and departed a gift from Bisley senior somewhere high over deep midwicket, two weeks later, the ball still has not been recovered, the search goes on!!

Eltham finished with 108 for 3 off of 12.3 over's, in a game that in the end was a convincing win, but could easily have been much harder if it hadn't been for a certain Tantastic's matching winning performance with the ball!

A great win, and good all round team performance! Onto the 19th hole, and allegedly entry into the cricketing version of the champion's league!

It has to be said that Splinters turned down the opportunity to pose with Amelia the Duck for the required photo, as and in my own words, and I quote "That fluffy duck is not shiny enough!" The challenge is on, can the ECC members bling or even pimp the duck?

Your faithfully correspondent, somewhere outside of Leeds courtesy of Nation Express East coast Wi-Fi - the wonders of modern technology!

Splinters "Will" Bisley