Lewis at the double

The second half of my Saturday afternoon's cricket entertainment took me to Stamford Road for the Seconds return visit to play West Bridgfordians (please see the Firsts report if you want the first half as well). During their good run in June the 2nd XI managed a comfortable seven wicket win over Fordians, but things have turned a little in the last couple of weeks and WBs sat second having recently beaten runaway leaders Bramcote while Eddy George’s team had been downed twice in successive weeks.

I saw that our hosts had clocked up 209/5 which given our recent batting woes was some cause for concern. However, Eddy said that although the wicket that green and slow, it was playing pretty true, offered little to the bowlers, and so should be okay for batting. He felt that the bowlers had done a pretty good job but towards the end of the innings had lost control to Ian Huskinson who raced to 83 off just 74 balls. For once Taimoor Tasnim had not taken wickets towards the end of the innings. Was this something to do with his lack of hair we wondered? He certainly looked different. I thought we had a new member of the club! He is too modest to mention it but the captain once again put in a full stint with figures of 12-2-33-2.

At one point I thought this report would be quite a short one. Right from the get go our openers Alan Lewis and Alex Gasper took control of bowling that lacked penetration and struggled with consistent lines. “Chewy” Lewis shook off his recent poor run and punished anything that was not on target with the full repertoire of pulls, cuts and drives. Indeed by the time the score was at 65-0 off 13 overs he was in the 40s. At first Alex had more of a watching brief displaying a sometimes exaggerated forward defensive. However, soon he opened out with huge straight sixes at both ends of the ground and then in one over he twice smashed their spinner (Dave Terrill)some way over the mid-wicket boundary.

At this stage after the earlier clouds had departed the sun was out and it was a lovely afternoon; actually nice light for some photographs. Conversation was relaxed and (always dangerous this) we wondered if anyone else would be needed to bat? 114 – 0 at drinks (23 overs) and then 168-0 off 31 overs.With good reason the home team were quiet in the field - resigned to their fate?

Mentioning conversation, as the runs flowed it was good to meet up with “Nads” Akhtar (whose son Adnan is showing fine form for the U11s), Peter Miller (dad of Sam – and 11 year old Fin who (whisper it) plays for the County and Gedling & Sherwood) and Raj Mishra (meant to ask him about the goings on at Leeds Utd).

I wandered round to the far end to speak with Eddy. He will admit to being a rather nervous spectator during run chases (it has to be said, justified in recent weeks) but he conceded that things were okay even when Alex finally fell pinned on the back foot and plumb in front for an excellent 64:169-1.

It is at this stage that things got "interesting". Just before Alex was dismissed WBs had brought on Ian Huskinson. He did not look threatening but what he did do was put the ball on a spot and basically invited the batsmen to come after him. At the other end Kwesi Spencer (an Ells for one season a little while back) came on to bowl his leggies. He did not look to be turning it but in his early overs he was very accurate, often being taken for a single by the well-settled Chewy and then drying up the runs for the other batter. His first 5 overs were 1-5.

Almost in the blinking of an eye, Sam Miller was out first ball to Huskinson (looked like he missed a straight one?) and exactly the same thing happened to Ryan Duggan, again for a duck. Next in was Maneesh Mishra. He looked comfortable but could not break through the infield. The overs were going by now with hardly any runs being scored. Chewy continued to bat well but there were no boundaries on offer any more and eventually Maneesh perished for 2 off 21 balls, skying an attempt to break the shackles imposed by WB MoM Huskinson.

By now Eddy had scurried away looking a good deal less content, leaving yours truly to move the sightscreen at the far end, take some photographs, send text messages to both his wife and Little Bounds, and to try and take some photographs. Is this multi-tasking?

Matt Footitt joined our unbeaten opener and early on found it a real struggle. Possibly the crucial moment was an attempt to run out Chewy which went for an additional four overthrows. A big sigh of relief!

Pleasingly, Chewy reached three figures with a push to long on and we could work off a little bit of nervous tension with a hearty round of applause.

There was a little flurry of runs and finally we got to the last over with “Mootitt” hitting the first delivery for four through a ring field and at last we were there! We could now enjoy a double over our friendly rivals and praise Chewy for his calm head in the growing crisis and for an excellently constructed hundred – 113 off 140 balls with 14 x 4. Back at Little Bounds with no less than 4 jugs doing the rounds courtesy of El Presidente (wins for Firsts, Seconds and table topping Thirds) and the centurion, Alan told me that this was a career high score, his third century all told and his second for the club. Well done that man!

At this time of the season every game seems to be important when there is something to play for. After the recent setbacks the Seconds are once again in the promotion chase from Divison D sponsored by FEET (etc) closing in on WBs who stand second by 6 points and now next face up to Sutton Bonington who are just behind us – by 6 points.