Bath Venturers (119-7) beat Western Flyers (115
all out) by 2 wickets.
Western
Flyers fell to a disappointing defeat in a 40 over friendly against Bath
Venturers at BAWA on Sunday. Making their first venture into the longer format
of the game Western Flyers had made a number of largely enforced changes to
their line-up. Captain Atiq was unable to play so handed the reins to Shehan,
who had drafted in a couple of players from Bristol Sri Lankans.
After
losing the toss and being put in to bat, Shehan had opted to flip the batting
order on its head, giving some players who’d previously had little time in the
middle a chance to impress. This didn’t quite work out as planned, a
combination of poor shot selection and a pair of opening bowlers who had the
ball swinging all over the place decimated the top order, so much so that the
top six between them mustered a paltry 4 runs off the bat. By the time Shehan
and Anu came together at the crease to start the rebuilding job the score was
20-6.
The
task now was to dig in and not lose any more wickets, if Western Flyers could
see out the 40 overs from this point it would be seen as a pretty decent
recovery. Anu, being the less attacking of the two batsmen was perhaps the more
suited to such a task and eventually departed having made a Boycott-esque 8
runs off 40 balls. Shehan at the other end surprised all by managing to mix his
usual attacking strokes with some previously unseen defensive shots.
The
score had passed 50, and as such was starting to look almost respectable, by
the time Anu departed to leave WFCC seven wickets down. Suneth (on loan from
Bristol Sri Lankans for the day) joined Shehan and set about building a fluid
innings as the run rate started to pick up. Shehan eventually fell lbw having
scored a vitally patient 29 off 48 balls, bringing Tim to the middle with the
score on 71-8 and still a little way to go to avoid an embarrassing all out for
under 100 debacle. Tim was clearly aiming to compete with Anu for slowest
strike rate of the day, while Suneth kept the runs ticking over until he holed
out to mid-on having added a very useful 26. Thusitha was last man in and, not
being one for wasting time defending he launched a massive boundary through
midwicket to signal his intent.
Just
as it started to look like these two might see off the remaining overs Tim
carelessly drove a ball straight back into the bowlers hands to end the
innings. All out for 115 with just under 33 of the allotted overs used, it was
a half decent recovery after slumping to 20-6 but nonetheless a woefully poor
batting performance that had left the bowlers with a lot of work to do to even
make a game of it.
Bath
Venturers emerged from the interval (after an impressive tea provided by WFCC’s
new tea lady, who may just have done enough to get the job on a permanent
basis) as favourites to chase down a total which required a run rate more at
home in the test match arena. However, it was still defendable if wickets came
early and the fact that Bath only had 10 men made things a little more exciting.
Shehan
and Yameen opened the bowling and with no pressure to score quickly it was an
understandably watchful start, with WFCC looking very sharp in the field early
on. With some movement still in the air, Shehan took the first scalp in the
first over of the innings as a beauty of a delivery clattered into the stumps.
Yameen from the other end bowled threateningly but without due reward as Bath
Venturers began to steadily knock off the runs. A couple more wickets followed
and 50-3 was the score after Shehan picked up a second as the batsman feathered
one behind to Nathan and Anu grabbed a wicket after drawing the batsmen out of
his crease only to waft at thin air as Nathan swiftly collected and knocked off
the bails.
It
did little to halt the flow of the innings however and the game looked to be
ambling towards a predictable conclusion until the introduction of debutant
left arm seamer Owen. After a few overs to find his rhythm he delivered three
beauties in a row, each one almost identical, pitched up, straight through the
batsmen’s defence and clattering into the stumps. The euphoria was short lived
however, one more wicket fell off the bowling of Anu but Bath Venturers never
really looked like losing as they reached their target with just over 3 overs
to spare.
An
undoubtedly disappointing result for the previously unbeaten in 2014 WFCC, and
whilst the result did not matter too much the manner of it will be of some
concern and improvements will need to be made before the next competitive match
against Bangers & Smashers on the 9th June. Bath Venturers
however were good value for their win and with the score now tied at one win a
piece between these two teams this season the next match up in August is set up
to be an intriguing occasion.
Match Report by Tim Fewster
Scorecard –
WFCC 115/10 (33 overs)
Venturers 119/7 (36.4 overs)
Venturers won by 2 wickets (Played with 10 men)
WFCC Innings (40 overs maximum)
|
||||||
Batsmen
|
Runs scored
|
How out
|
Bowler
|
Total
|
||
Nathan Sanders
|
Caught
|
Siddhat
|
0 (7)
|
|||
Owen Gebler
|
1
|
Caught
|
Siddhat
|
1 (3)
|
||
Saad Ahmed
|
1
|
Bowled
|
Hotchens
|
1 (9)
|
||
Sivachandran Punniyakotti
|
Bowled
|
Siddhat
|
0 (5)
|
|||
Yameen Hussain
|
11
|
LBW
|
Siddhat
|
2 (6)
|
||
Anuraddha
|
Bowled
|
Siddhat
|
0 (4)
|
|||
Shehan Somaratna
|
6 4 1 1 1 4 4 1 1 1 1 4
|
LBW
|
Mridul
|
29 (48)
|
||
Jude Mudannayake
|
1 1 4 1 1
|
Caught
|
Gregory
|
8 (40)
|
||
Suneth Hewage
|
1 2 1 2 4 1 1 4 4 1 1 2
|
Caught
|
Gregory
|
26 (34)
|
||
Tim Fewster
|
1 2 1 4 4
|
Caught
|
Harsh
|
12 (31)
|
||
Thusitha Wickramasinghe*
|
4
|
NOT
|
OUT
|
4* (6)
|
||
Bowling extras
|
No balls
|
0
|
||||
Wides
|
25
|
|||||
Fielding extras
|
Byes and leg byes
|
6
|
||||
Total extras
|
31
|
|||||
Total score
|
115 runs for 10 wickets, 33 overs
|
|||||
Venturers Bowling (33 overs)
|
||||
Bowlers
|
Overs
|
Maidens
|
Runs
|
Wickets
|
Hotchins
|
8
|
2
|
19
|
1
|
Siddhat
|
8
|
1
|
22
|
5
|
Gregory
|
8
|
0
|
34
|
2
|
Mridul
|
6
|
0
|
24
|
1
|
Murali
|
2
|
0
|
9
|
0
|
Harsh
|
1
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
Venturers
Innings (Target 116 in 40 overs)
|
|||||||
Batsmen
|
Runs scored
|
How out
|
Bowler
|
Total
|
|||
Chris Middup
|
1
|
Bowled
|
Shehan
Somaratna
|
1
|
|||
Matthew Hamilton
|
1 4
4 1 1 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 4
|
Caught
(Nathan)
|
Shehan Somaratna
|
25
|
|||
C.Hotchen
|
1 2 2 2 1 1
|
Stumped (Nathan)
|
Anuraddha
|
7
|
|||
Manoj*
|
4 1
2 1 1 1 2
|
NOT
|
OUT
|
12*
|
|||
Mridul
|
4
|
Bowled
|
Owen
Gebler
|
4
|
|||
Murali
|
0
|
Bowled
|
Owen Gebler
|
0
|
|||
Harsh
|
0
|
Bowled
|
Owen
Gebler
|
0
|
|||
Siddhat
|
4 1
2 6 1 4
|
Caught
(Nathan)
|
Jude Mudannayake
|
18
|
|||
Simon Shaw*
|
1 4 4 4 1 1 1 4 1 1 4 4 4
|
NOT
|
OUT
|
35*
|
|||
Gregory Sankaran
|
-
|
DID
|
NOT
|
BAT
|
|||
No 11th batsmen
|
|||||||
Bowling extras
|
No balls
|
2
|
|||||
Wides
|
6
|
||||||
Fielding extras
|
Byes + Leg byes
|
6
|
|||||
Total
extras
|
14
|
||||||
Total
score
|
119
runs for 7 wickets, 36.4 overs
|
||||||
WFCC Bowling
(36.4 overs)
|
||||
Bowler
|
Overs
|
Maidens
|
Runs
|
Wickets
|
Shehan Somaratna
|
8
|
1
|
24
|
2
|
Yameen Hussain
|
8
|
2
|
21
|
0
|
Owen Gebler
|
7
|
0
|
20
|
3
|
Anuraddha
|
8
|
1
|
24
|
1
|
Jude Mudannayake
|
5.4
|
1
|
24
|
1
|
Match Detail
Toss - Venturers, elected to bowl
Player of the match - Owen Gebler
