Washington Cricket Club - 40th Anniversary Year

Peter Kloss reporting

Washington bounced back from the 161 run drubbing they received last year versus Northfields to score a solid victory on Saturday. The win owed a lot to strong performances from several debutants, notably Naveed Mir (4-25) with the ball and Alex Smith (52) with the bat. Sudeep Rana (52) was only playing his second game for the Wash, and also this was Toby Mariner’s first outing as skipper for the Washington. All turned in good performances.

Mariner won the toss and put the opposition in on a green looking wicket. The day was glorious and sunny and it seemed summer had arrived. Indeed the green wicket misbehaved significantly for the bowlers with balls keeping low at one end and rising from just short of a length at the other. Opening bowlers Mariner (1-24) and Naveed Mir (4-25) exploited the conditions excellently, although they had to wait until the 9^th over for the first breakthrough by which time Northfields had progressed to 34 runs.

Mariner gave way to Arun Prasad (0-25) at one end but pace-man Naveed at the other bowled his full 8 overs. In his last 2 overs he ripped through the Northfields middle order, clean bowling 3 batsmen as they collapsed to 71 for 6 in the 18^th over. It was Naveed’s fast yorker which was the most dangerous delivery.

Ahir Pushpanath (2-26) and Gary Malcolm (0-20) came on to bowl as Northfields sought to rebuild what was left of their innings. In fact the nos. 5 and 8 batsmen were able to steady things with a stand of 68 for the 7^th wicket. The no. 5, Thompson, top-scored with 77. Northfields were aided with a couple of dropped catches from the Wash which really should have been taken, although overall the team fielding was good on this day and Sudeep (later handing over to Alex Smith) behind the stumps both proved most competent.

Manos Kharkar (0-20), Sudeep Rana (1-14) and Peter Kloss (1-8) came on to bowl in the last 10 overs and wrapped up the tail, aided by an excellent direct hit run out from Arun Prasad. Northfields were all out for 176 with almost 3 overs of their 40 remaining.

Following an excellent tea of sandwiches and home-made sponge cake, the Wash started their innings with debutants Alex Smith (52) and Amit Patil (19) opening up. They proceeded to put on an accomplished 73 run partnership in 15 overs, Smith stroking away boundaries with some ease while Amit held up the other end (although he did play and miss a fair bit). The Northfields bowlers did not seem to be able to get the same bounce and variation out of the pitch which some of the Washington players had achieved and batting did seem significantly easier.

After Amit was out LBW, Arun Prasad came in to bat. He hit one glorious boundary and was really enjoying his cricket, but then unfortunately he pulled across the line to a low full toss, got a top edge and the ball hit him hard on the right eyebrow. Unfortunately Arun was not wearing a helmet. It was a bad cut, although thankfully there were no other side effects. He went off to hospital, very kindly driven by David Gluckman’s partner Barbara, where later he had 12 stiches – ouch!

After the injury delay, another debutant, Manos Kharkar (6) batted briefly before being bowled and Alex Smith got out shortly after achieving his 50. Sudeep Rana (52) was at the crease with the score at 109 for 3, or effectively 4 wickets. Another wicket or two falling and the game could have gone either way. Sudeep and David Gluckman (12*) carved out a 58 run partnership to effectively bring the Wash home, or very close to it. Sudeep’s aggressive strokeplay enabled him to score many boundaries, particularly over mid-wicket and mid-on, and the partnership proceeded in relatively quick time. Gluckman played a good supporting role at the other end, as is his forte, but he did sneak a couple of boundaries himself through the slip area.

It was left to Gluckman and Peter Kloss (5*) to knock off the final few runs carefully with 3.3 overs to spare.

Skipper Mariner said after the game “a strong all round team performance today – the victory was well deserved. Of course there were also some very notable individual performances, from Naveed, Alex and Sudeep particularly. Well played to them too. It’s good to be 1 for 1 as skipper for the Wash. I have considered retiring on a 100% record, but on balance I’d like to do the job again if the opportunity arises J”

Man of the Match: a really tough choice with the two 50s obviously being prominent, but this reporter goes for Naveed’s bowling as his wickets came at a very important time and was very influential in keeping Northfields score well below 200.

Packing the kit: no particular candidates this time.