Scorecard

Flamstead ll v Radlett CC 5th XI on Sat 10 Jul 2010 at 1.00
Radlett CC Won by 135 runs

Match report Radlett V, inspired by a career high score from Lee Greenland of 79 banished the ghost of last week with a convincing 135-run victory over Flamstead II to move back up to ninth in Division 11.

Things didn’t go all Radlett’s way. They were inserted and after six overs Flamstead would have been delighted at the score of 17 for three. Radlett had picked up from where they left off last week, 13 wickets falling for just 100 runs.

With Radlett’s three most experienced batsmen back in the hutch for a combined total of three runs, it was down to the youngsters of the side to rebuild the innings and set a defendable target for the bowlers. It was good to see the calmness and mature manner in which Rikin Shah went about digging Radlett out of trouble.

Shah played a rear guard innings of 48, leaving anything wide of off stump and making the bowlers bowl straighter so that he could exclusively deal in boundaries with low risk on-drives. At the other end Greenland was riding his luck a little as he was dropped a couple of times early in his innings. The pair moved the score on to 82 with a partnership of 65 before Shah’s only lapse of concentration cost him, falling only two short of a well deserved fifty.

This brought another youth player, Joe Wharton, to the crease who was clearly hungry for runs, having been out of the side recently. This knock, albeit a brief one, really took the impetus away from Flamstead as Wharton not only cleared the straight boundary with three violent sixes. He managed to lose two match balls into a nearby field as well taking a rather large chunk out of the sightscreen on one occasion.

It was pleasing to see that Greenland did not try to match Wharton’s big hitting and simply concentrated on his own game as the pair put on 52 runs together. Wharton perished in the deep going for another big hit.

If Radlett had thought that Wharton’s 39 had broken the spirit of Flamstead, they conspired to give the initiative back to the bowlers. Johnny Armitage was in and out without troubling the scorers, followed by Arif Rahman who was needlessly run out by a poor call from Greenland
and then Ender Tahsin whose bat finally cracked, clearly having had enough of those trademark edges down to third man. May this be a lesson to Tahsin to learn a few more shorts that use another part of the bat other than the outside edge.

The tail wagged as Satish Pandey put on 46 with Greenland before Pete “walking wicket” Wharton entered the fray with a season average of 0.6. The 5th XI may struggle for players at times, but they have an abundance of coaching having 'hired' their number one fan, Simon Randall, as their match day nets coach. A few minutes of coaching time and Wharton played his part in an unbroken last-wicket stand of 29 that allowed Greenland to add quick runs with some lovely straight drives to finish on a career best of 79 not out. Tom Clare had the luxury of declaring on 239 and giving Radlett 46 overs to bowl Flamstead out.

This declaration had looked a long way off at 17 for 3 and was testament to the mature heads of the youth players that Radlett were able to do so.

Tea was taken in a small room covered with Flamstead honours board where it was pointed out that one of their batsmen hit nearly 1,500 runs in 2005, more than the whole of the Radlett team put together last season. We also found out that Flamstead had successfully chased down 240+ twice this season, although rumour applied to the less competitive Sunday League. In Division 11 their chase record was weak.

Nonetheless any doubt over the result was soon dismissed after Wharton and Rahman broke the back of the Flamstead resistance, assisted by some fine catches by wicketkeeper Shabir Foyez. All the bowlers chipped in, with Pandey’s spin proving difficult to play by the Flamstead middle order.

After some tail-end blocking from the final wicket pair the Flamstead captain questioned whether the overs bowled was correct and was abruptly chastised by the scorer for questioning his skills. Turns out he was right to do so, as when copying out the scorebook Radlett had somehow managed to take 11 wickets in the game. Pandey being the beneficiary of this unusual scoring method. In the end this win was as empathic as the loss the previous week, and Radlett could have taken at least 14 wickets, which no doubt would have been recorded by the Flamstead scorer, had it not been for some simple chances being put down.

The big difference between the two sides was the maturity of the batting. Flamstead found themselves in a similar position as Radlett at the start of their innings. Despite having a more experienced side, they continued to play their shots and ultimately gave their wickets away instead of consolidating and rebuilding like the youth in the Radlett side did.

MOM: Lee Greenland, TFC: Tom Clare

Radlett CC 5th XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 9 wickets
0
239
(0.0 overs)		    
Tom Clare Bowled  2
Andrew Griffiths Bowled  1 1
Rikin Shah Bowled  48
Shabbir Foyez Bowled  0 3
Lee Greenland Not Out  79
Joe Wharton Caught  39
John Armitage Bowled  0 1
Arif Rahman Run out  4 1
Ender Tahsin Caught  9
Satish Pandey Caught  22
Pete Wharton Not Out  7

Flamstead ll Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
No records to display.

Flamstead ll Batting
Player name Runs
extras
TOTAL :
 
for 10 wickets
0
104 (0.0 overs)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Radlett CC 5th XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Arif Rahman7.221226.001.64
Pete Wharton9.0034311.333.78
John Armitage6.02723.501.17
Satish Pandey6.0123211.503.83
Rikin Shah 7.0014114.002.00