Wargave Ones beat Slough (again)..!!!

Any team’s real strength is to bounce back from defeat in great style and the Ones have done that not just once or twice, but quite a few times this Season. After a low at Bagshot thanks to a sub-standard pitch (due to no covers throughout the week filed with rain), good bowling by their 6 foot + bowler and the pitch flattened mid-way after it being rolled during our break which handed Bagshot 20 points (pretty much the match report of the Bagshot game), Ones had to bounce back quickly against Slough.

After the first thrilling win of this Season against Slough, the team were high on confidence on beating them again, this time at our home. The sun was poking through the clouds after hiding behind the rain clouds over the last few days and you could see all were excited as Alex was setting up cones for our fielding drills.

The one thing that kept me motivated during the drills (as I drool on the train where I am writing this match report today) was the fact that Maggie was in charge of teas for the game and all I could think about was samosas, homemade tasty pasta, lots and lots of fruits (time to wipe the drool off before people in the carriage start staring at me drooling over the screen in front of me!)

Before the toss, Mandip had a quick team meeting and asked all for their opinion on what to do after we win the toss, given that it was a tricky decision to make and it was good to see the whole team unanimously decide (except Imran who was stuck in traffic or I think trying to get Mum stuck in traffic so that he can have all the samosas for himself!) on batting first and when Mandip won the toss it was a clear sign that the lady luck was smiling our way after she deserted us last week.

Mandip and Luke started off the innings in great style as Mandip was punishing any delivery in his arc and clearing boundaries at will. Luke was being the anchor and kept giving the strike to Mandip which enabled us to score at a brisk pace. When Mandip fell on 32 runs, Imran joined Luke in the middle. They both put up another great 50 partnership but got caught on 28 after timing the ball really well to the only fielder on the leg side. He had to work hard as Slough were bowling at good lengths and he kept his cool all the way through. Luke on the other side was very lucky not to have Imran’s bat as he kept “timing” all the aerial shots in between the fielders, however all his ground shots were worth quite a few claps from the crowd. Euan and Luke then put together the next 50 partnership of the Ones and we were sitting comfortable at 168 for 2 but when Euan got an inside edge onto his stumps, a mini panic set in as Neal, myself and Tom didn’t trouble Richard (more on this at the end of the report…) for the next few overs.

Alex again came to our rescue (like he took the tall bowler in Bagshot and I vividly remember him walking all the way to the non-strikers end and tapping the wicket after pulling the bowler for consecutive 4s) and scored a brisk 17. At the other end Luke was happy taking singles and “timing” the ball in between the gaps and was racing towards his 100. Luke then timed his first ball of the game and hit a massive six near the play area (where there was a lot more play going on later in the day…). When Luke got out on a very well deserved 98, it looked like we had to score a few more runs on our wicket as bigger scores have been chased down. Faaez was excellent between the wickets and took some sharp singles to keep the strike rotating with Charlie (who had just scored 48 in his previous innings for the 2s) and when Huw and Charlie left the field on 236, we knew that we would have liked a few more runs on the board but given that the wicket was turning we felt confident that we could give Slough a good fight with the ball.

Stuffing our faces with Maggie’s excellent teas, we had to digest the news that Alex does 190kg squats in the gym (need to verify that during Wargrave Olympics) and Neal enjoying his cheese (courtesy Mossy) salad , as he looked at us eating away to glory with him tucking into his lunch box full of leaves, Charlie was gloating that he could biceps curls with 28kg. You could see that the sun was affecting the Ones but we decided to focus at the task at hand, to get Slough bowled quickly in case of rain in the afternoon (Luke was contradicting all the weather predictions for Saturday).

Euan and Huw kick started our bowling session and bowled excellently on our wicket. The wicket wasn’t as good we thought it would be after all the bowling by Slough before but we bowled with a lot of patience and aiming at the right areas. Huw took the first wicket and then straight after Euan got his first wicket, courtesy excellent stumping by Tom. The team were playing as unit, bowlers toiling, Tom excellent with the gloves and fielders throwing themselves around (in spite of all the distraction in the play area).

Wickets kept falling at regular intervals but Faisal Khan was playing a Luke innings and we knew that if we got his wicket, we could wrap this game up, before the rain came.

Euan bowled a marathon spell of 23 overs from one end and even when people thought that he had been bowling for too long for a breakthrough, Mandip kept him on and Euan got us the crucial breakthrough when Alex took a great catch at silly mid-off.

When Neal got their number 9 batsman we were looking at the bowlers and the sky (it was clear blue skies still Luke!) and hoping that we get our next 2 wickets soon.

With the last wicket to be taken in 3 more overs, it was becoming a real nail biter of a game and when Huw’s ball hit the pads of their number 11 batsman, one could hear our vociferous appeal for an LBW in Slough and we all jumped in joy and hugged each other after winning our appeal, much to the delight of the crowd watching our game.

It was a fantastic win to say the least and as the ones have proved time and again, we bounced back from a horrid loss in the previous week to beat a team above us in the Table.

Euan ended up with 5 wickets to his tally and it was a good win for us.

The Club also owes a big thank you to Richard who has been at our Club on time, scored all our games (you could see his professional work on the Ones scorebook), although we have failed to trouble Richard in Bagshot (but there’s a very interesting article on Cricinfo on how even that phrase is not accurate and Richard did have a tough time in Bagshot, more information on this link…. http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/908735.html)

Now to the final 2 games of the season and hoping to win the games against Boyne Hill and Hurst and stay up in Division 2.

Oh yeah, it did rain in the end as we won the game, so you were right with your wild prediction too Luke, so next time let me know about a few bets I can place in the future on Paddy Power…

Match report by Sunil Kumar