Sunday 4 September 2016 Stragglers of Asia vs Honourable Artillery Company

Result: Won by 119 runs

Team Batting First: Stragglers of Asia

Report:

On an overcast day in the City of London a motley Stragglers side carrying a mixture of maladies and injuries – some sustained on the field of play and others while carousing off it, arrived at Armoury House to play against a 10 man HAC side on what, at first inspection looked like a standard Armoury House track: hard, straw coloured and tailor made for batting. That view called for rapid re-assessment when Sye, on winning the toss and cheerfully declaring he would bat first was told by the (equally cheery) HAC skipper that the strip for the game had only been used once before this season and that had he won the toss he would have bowled first. If this caused the opening pair of Allsop and Gleave to question Sye’s judgment, the second ball of the innings which rose from just short of a length to land on Nick Gleave’s cheek (via a top edge) certainly did. Happily Nick suffered no real damage and was able to continue batting until a fast Yorker from Cameron Edwards caused more significant damage to his stumps. At the other end, James Allsop, struggling to get over the wedding celebrations he enthusiastically participated in the night before, started to realise that the bowlers were only sending one ball down at time and started to hit it sharing an opening stand of 39 with Gleave and 45 with Ian Salter before middling a square cut straight to the HAC captain to be caught for 49. There then followed the traditional Stragglers’ middle order wobble as Steve Booth perished to a leading edge and then the Stragglers’ captain perished first ball, cleaned up by another yorker.  When Conor Brown perished two overs later to a similar delivery again from the increasingly menacing bowling of Cameron Edwards, the Stragglers had slumped from 84-1 to 103-5. However a 66 run stand for the sixth wicket by Salter (who by measured accumulation top scored with 56) and guest Darren Hooey (41 by blasting any ball within reach) revived the innings to allow the Stragglers to declare on 180-7.

From past visits to Armoury House, 180 seemed well below par and it is fair to say that more than one member of the Stragglers loudly questioned Sye’s declaration (and his sanity) during the excellent tea kindly prepared by the HAC skipper– especially given three members of his bowling attack were carrying injuries. Those concerns were hardly allayed by the start of the HAC’s reply when Edwards, whose batting style was no less aggressive than his bowling slapped Steve Booth’s second ball for six. However despite repeating the effort an over or so later against Darren Hooey opening at the other end, he soon tried his luck once too often and skied a catch to Ian Salter keeping wicket.

With the HAC pinch hitter gone, Steve and Darren, both bowling off reduced run ups were able to settle into a good rhythm and wickets began to fall with Steve taking an excellent return catch to get rid of Rose, while Darren first produced a stunning throw from the boundary to enable the run out of Das and then a pearler of an outswinger to have Jones caught behind to leave the HAC 43-4. With the HAC top order removed, Andrew Drummond was introduced to the attack and quickly ran through the lower order picking up 3-11 off four overs as the last 5 wickets fell for 14 runs in less than 9 overs to finish a match which was at all times played by both sides in a good humour and spirit which was continued in the Artillery Arms post match.

Special thanks to the HAC for hosting us so well and to our umpire for uncomplainingly standing at both ends as well as our scorer, Barbara Egglesfield for scoring alone.

  Batsman How Out Bowler Score
1 J. Allsop Ct M Edwards C Edwards 49
2 N. Gleave Bowled C Edwards 8
3 I Salter (wkt) Ct Silva 56
4 S. Booth Ct M Edwards Jones 6
5 S Razvi (capt) Bowled C Edwards 0
6 C Brown Bowled C Edwards 0
7 D Hooey (g) Ct Silva 41
8 A Drummond Not out   5
9 W Russell Not out   1
10 S Waymouth Did not bat    
11

 

R Pollock-Hill Did not bat    
      Extras: 14 TOTAL: 180 for 7 dec

 

Bowler Overs Maidens Runs Wickets
H Agnew 9 2 38 0
C Edwards 17 1 71 4
E Jones 11 0 49 1
S Silva 3 0 12 2

 

Team Batting Second: The Honourable Artillery Company

  Batsman How Out Bowler Score
1 A Das Run out   5
2 C Edwards Ct Salter (wkt) Booth 17
3 B Rose (wkt) C & b Booth 5
4 L Casey Bowled Booth 7
5 E Jones Ct Salter (wkt) Hooey 7
6 A Wallace LBW Drummond 6
7 B Timpson Bowled Drummond 1
8 M Edwards (capt) Bowled Drummond 1
9 H Agnew Not out   0
10 S. Silva Ct Drummond Pollock-Hill 5
11        
      Extras: 7 TOTAL: 61 all out

 

Bowler Overs Maidens Runs Wickets
S Booth 11 2 19 3
D Hooey (g) 8 1 23 1
A Drummond 4 1 11 3
R Pollock-Hill 1.3 0 1 1

 

Umpires: Scorer(s): Barbara Egglesfield