RNVR Cricket Club

Scorecard

Lords Travellers CC v RNVR Cricket Club on Sun 02 Jun 2019 at 13.30
Match was Tied

Match report RNVR won the toss and chose to field, match limited to 40 overs per side.

LTCC 234 all out 40 overs
RNVR 234 all out 39.5 overs
Match Tied

It must be very hard not to have sympathy with both Reza and Colin this morning. Both bludgeoned heavy scores as their sides reached 234 off the allocated 40 overs. Reza’s 66 was remarkable coming in, as he did, at number 9. Batting until the 39th over with James Bamford they doubled LTCC’s score in what felt like no time.

In a week celebrating the actions of 75 years ago, the foundations of our club, including the efforts of our own Emeritus President, all at a time when national leadership is in question, it was heartwarming that at one point 6 past and present RNVR skippers tried to defeat another, batting for and leading the opposition, while yet another scored.

Certainly the opening overs had gone the RNVR’s way despite three of the club’s medium pacers finding the start time, Hammersmith bridge or maybe just their lunch plans too inconvenient to share the full day with the rest of us.

Hylton settled into a metronomic groove from the start, a hint of the late Paul Thomas about his tight spell and batting position later, at Number 7. In truth opening with a maiden set a tone that saw LTCC below 4 an over and regularly losing wickets for the first 25 overs. Deputising for Davinder, Giles or Mark Pepler allowed the skipper to get a few of his supererogatory seventh bowler’s overs out of the way early. Fifteen to twenty years thus suitably rolled back it was a Ct Vacher, Bowled Vacher that added a new twist to the book’s repository of history. .

Normality was quickly restored with Bridges taking a jug earning four wickets with support from all the other bowlers. Well not all, as Davinder found bat edge time and time again but nothing sadly stayed stuck in the slip cordon, or indeed anywhere else.

Even Jug avoidance turned out to be a misnomer as the local pub, the Red Lion at Barn Elms, refused to serve beer in jugs and forced the counter intuitive act of pulled pints being poured into jugs so that the beer could be re-poured into pint glasses. “As pointless as a gulley” as Dr Ford might have said.

234 seemed a gently high total at tea. But in a fretful earlier moment tea itself had seemed a scarily far off concept when the fixture secretary, momentarily awake, remembered that this was a match between two Wandering sides and would anyone have remembered to organise one? Fortunately LTCC are, among many things, very food focused.

James Massey led the charge from the resumption at his combative best and seemed keen to help himself and the cause whatever Ben choose to throw at him. The site of Ed snr 666 doing Yoga in the outfield was enough to keep his pet hound cowering under the scorer’s table. What, one wonders, is the effect on a terrier’s mental state knowing it’s owner is better at “downward dog,” and for all we know chewing at his own toenails?

Vinay bowled a tight spell and had the other pinch hitter, Pepler, strangled far too soon. One hard hitting ball striker was replaced by another; the first of the Crichtons took on the bowling walloping through the fabled V much to the President’s evident pleasure, and this even once Ben worked out what was happening. He fell for a very entertaining 49 off only 38 balls.

Edward’s demise brought Colin to the wicket in the 15th over. That he managed to amass 131 and be out in the 39th over would attest to some speedy accumulation – it was brutal. His second 50 was scored far faster than the first which was itself achieved at a strike rate of above 100. The later stages were also scored apace while protecting a tail making up for paucity of strokes with doggedness aplenty. Along the way Colin had near 50 partnerships with both Tim (2) and Davinder (3), although the later, for the 7th wicket, was in fact started with Giles Sutcliffe (2*) who sadly tore his calf, retired hurt, and self exiled before the pain stopped his accelerator leg getting him home to Maidenhead. We wish him a speedy recovery.

With the target of 235 to win looming Colin finally actually missed a ball with the total on 232 in the 39th over. Many club members go an entire season without scoring a hundred runs and miss balls far more frequently than once every 24 overs or so.

Bertie Vacher scampered the two singles required to level the scores. The work done his father bizarrely elected to finish matters with a six that in fact squirted tamely to backward point, off a jubilant Dale, from the matches’ penultimate delivery, mindlessly unaware that scores level with fewer wickets lost might have carried the day.

LTCC have never lost a game of cricket and on this performance maybe they never will. But to achieve this they must, in a final reckoning, play against chaps as stupid as Piers each week.

Reflecting on a splendid and close game has actually made me feel unwell. Yes we like to have close finishes and this is the closest imaginable, but to have personally squandered the whole team’s hard work so effectively is terribly humbling. Sure, I’ve been a skipper. Sure, I’ve scored a century once (23 very long years ago), but so far this season the closest I am to 100 is to take my three individual completed innings and arrange them in descending order…………

As always Colin was magnanimity personified and congratulated everyone else around him as he bought jugs for his catches, his bowling and his batting. It’s quite a big ask to stay level headed and modest when you’ve raised a side, captained it and then seen your efforts dashed by a fool.

Perhaps this then is the enduring and truly uniting experience of leadership in the RNVR cricket club (rather than the actual Naval Reserve) over the years.

Lords Travellers CC Batting
Player name RunsMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 14w 6b 4lb 
for 10 wickets
25
234 (40.0 overs)		     
Jono Vernon-Powell ct  C Bridges b P Vacher 4
Brian ct  B Vacher b P Vacher 3
Ed Hewens ct  P Vacher b C Bridges 14
Dickie Laurenson lbw  C Bridges 22
R Easom lbw  C Bridges 8
Rob Paterson b  C Bridges 22
Vinay Kumar lbw  G Sutcliffe 12
Ben Dale ct  E Crichton b M Pepler 5
Reza Maroof ct  H Phillips b J Massey 66
James Bamford Run out  36
Alex Beard Not Out  17

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Hylton Phillips8.012500.003.12
Piers Vacher5.0128214.005.60
Davinder Ranu6.003000.005.00
Colin Bridges8.0046411.505.75
Mark Pepler4.0026126.006.50
Giles Sutcliffe4.0031131.007.75
James Massey5.0039139.007.80

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Batting
Player Name RMB4s6sSRCatchesStumpingsRun outs
extras
TOTAL :
1nb 3w 1b 2lb 
for 10 wickets
7
234		        
James Massey b  Brian 36 54 6 66.67
Mark Pepler b  V Kumar 0 2 0
Edward Crichton ct  E Hewens b R Paterson 49 38 11 128.95 1
Colin Bridges b  R Paterson 131 87 14 6 150.57 1
Charlie Crichton ct  R Maroof b Brian 2 5 40.0
Tim Hardman ct  b Brian 2 11 18.18
Hylton Phillips lbw  V Kumar 0 5 0 1
Giles Sutcliffe Retired Not Out  2 4 50.0
Davinder Ranu b  B Dale 3 15 20.0
Piers Vacher ct  E Hewens b B Dale 0 2 0 1 1
Bertie Vacher Not Out  2 5 40.0 1

Lords Travellers CC Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
V Kumar8.0231215.503.87
A Beard6.013500.005.83
J Bamford4.003200.008.00
R Paterson8.0063231.507.88
Brian8.0036312.004.50
B Dale6.5034217.004.98