Washington Cricket Club - 40th Anniversary Year

The occasional cloud and a blustery breeze saw the Wash arrive for an early start at one of their more enjoyable fixtures of the season, Southill Park Cricket Club. The venue is a cricket ground built on the vast estate of the Whitbread family, a name familiar to many a beer drinker.

The ground, as usual, was in immaculate condition and the decision to bat or bowl is always an agonising one given the rumours the skipper had heard about the legendary lunches. Be that as it may, after winning the toss, the skipper decided that the boys could do with batting first and setting a target. Part of the reason for this was that the team assembled was one of the strongest batting lineups seen in the Wash for many a year.  The format of the game was to be a 50 over match with a lunch break at the change of innings.

George Hope (51) and Tony Harris opened the batting at a fair rate of knots scoring at over 5 runs an over before George played just one too many through the air to the mid-wicket fence and holed out for a well played 50. The opening partnership yielded 78 in 12 overs. The mighty Paul Irons then joined Harris and together they rattled along before in a few overs both Irons (24) and Harris (33) had lost their wickets.

Aff Naseem and Chris Davis then set about rebuilding an innings that had lost some momentum after flurry of wickets. Slowly but surely they built their partnership which took them to the second drinks break. With 15 overs to go the time had come for the Wash batsmen to push on and up the tempo. This unfortunately saw Naseem (15) lose his wicket to an indifferent shot and followed soon after by Davis (32) but more importantly a solid partnership of 45 runs that set the platform for the big hitting.

Tony Burt and Sandeep Kuckreja tore into the bowling, mixing some big hitting and some more orthodox cricket strokes as and when needed. Some glorious shots regularly found gaps and the boundary as they rattled along at close on 10 an over and they took the score from under 200 to close on 300. Both Burt (59*) and Kuckreja (60) scored well deserved and well played 50’s. Kuckreja departed with 2 overs remaining in the innings which was finished off by Shawn Hill (8*) and Burt. The final score was Washington 304-6 off their allotted 50 overs.

It was time for lunch and it did not disappoint, many of the guys needing to depart from the Wash norm and actually stretch before taking to the field (yes, I saw you Fogs)

Peter Kloss (0-43) opened the bowling with Hill and the opening overs were pretty tight with not many runs being conceded. Hill bowled 4 overs, 1 for 7 before spraining his ankle and hobbling off to spend the rest of the day in and around the slip cordon.

Having lost an early wicket Southill batted well and were in the process pulling back a sluggish start before Sandeep bamboozled the Southill no.3 and clean bowled him. That was the start of a fantastic spell of bowling and some good catching from the Wash that initially put the brakes on the opposition’s run chase and then tore it to shreds. With Russell Pendry holding up one end with a bit of indifferent yet still effective bowling returning figures of 2 for 42 runs, Sandeep cleaned up the top order with 4 for 32, his reverse swing and any one of his 7 slower balls foxing everyone. After this Southill were always chasing the game and with brief spells from Tony Burt (1 for 27) and Chris Davis (2 for 6) the opposition were all out for 199.

A word of warning though, after some cracking individual performances and a good team effort, Southill Park Cricket Club have jugs of beer that are to be respected. They were gratefully enjoyed by the team in the sun after the game.

Well done to the Wash on a lovely day’s cricket, you boys did yourself proud.

Man of the match: Shared by Aff Naseem and Chris Davis for their important partnership in the context of the match that allowed the Wash to post a formidable score.

Packing the kit: No contenders this time

Washington:  Tony Harris, George Hope, Paul Irons, Chris Davis, Aff Naseem (+), Sandeep Kuckreja, Tony Burt, Shawn Hill (c), Lee Fogarty,  Peter Kloss, Russell Pendry