RNVR Cricket Club

Scorecard

Stansted Park CC v RNVR Cricket Club on Sun 06 Jul 2025 at 1pm
RNVR Cricket Club Lost by 4 wickets

Match report The prospect of no cricket for consecutive weekends loomed large when Hurstpierpoint called me on Wednesday morning with only five players. Desperate times called for desperate measures and I perused one of my Facebook cricket sites to find that Stansted Park were facing a similar dilemma. Having worked out that Stansted Park was nowhere near Stansted airport and in fact closer to Chichester, I quickly managed to hatch a plan, and we had ourselves a replacement game in the grounds of a stately home formerly owned by the Earl of Arundel, with accompanying Capability Brown landscaped gardens. Not a bad return from social media!

Inevitably the A3 was closed, so Ben and I got on the train (sans Tim) with a degree of excitement as we forged our way into the unknown. Rowlands Castle greeted us with a good café, pastel de natas and coffees followed by a quick pint in the Castle before being picked up by Frano and taken to the ground. Inevitably as we arrived the rain started, however thankfully, given the glorious setting this was short lived and we were able to get on with the game. The toss was negotiated, I subsequently found out that they didn’t fancy batting on a greasy wicket, and a 38/42 declaration game agreed.

The wicket certainly had something in it for the bowlers with some good bounce and the changeable overcast conditions aided swing. Stansted had the quintessential Sunday 15-year-old at one end fifty something at the other bowling attack. This was enough to see off the RNVR openers in quick succession bringing Ben Dale and Rishi to the crease to steady the ship. And steady it they did, playing some lovely drives through the V before Ben chopped on attempting a cut. This left Rishi playing a positively Shubman Gill-esque innings to reach his fifty, accompanied first by Nevin, then his father, and finally, Sir Alex Beard. When Rishi departed, Alex was left to try and force the runs as overs ran out and RNVR finished 158-7 with Charlie Sokol and Bertie Vacher at the wicket post their Dover beach party!

From Shubman Gill to Akash Deep as keen not to outdone by his son Yogesh took the top of numbers 1 and 3’s off stump to bowl a double wicket maiden in his first over! The other opener seeing this decided to cash in on Frano from the other end swinging hard for some straight sixes. Frano replaced by Sir Alex restored calm as he went for a miserly 16-1 in his 6 over spell (Tim taking a sharp catch at backward point to remove the opener). Not quite as miserly as Yogesh though who went for only 3 runs in his first five overs. Things were looking good for RNVR with Stansted 48-3 off 14 overs with Rishi, bowling seam-up this year, replacing his father in the attack. Nevin and Ben came into the attack as Barney from Stansted started to hit the ball more freely. Tim took another sharp catch and Nevin had Barney LBW – game on at 119-6 with 12 overs remaining. The skipper turned to Charlie Sokol to see whether he could repeat his Reigate Pilgrims golden arm to remove Stansted skipper Tim Joy. The RNVR’s Tim came tantalising close to snaffling a hat-trick of catches at backward point, and even the return of Yogesh and Frano couldn’t see us home, as Stansted reached their target with 5 overs to spare.

The teams retired to The Castle to discuss the day’s events and what might have been. Everyone agreed that it had been a terrific game, with two evenly matched sides, and talked of this becoming a regular fixture. I’ll drink to that!

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
4w 7b 2lb 
for 7 wickets
13
158		        
Tim Hardman ct P Baustin 5 1 2
Charlie Crichton ct J Lomas 6 1
Ben Dale b J Johnson 22 4
Mriksh Bhanushali ct & Bowled B Trafford 54 7
Nevin Lobo b H Lomas 19 3 1
Yogesh Bhanushali lbw H Lomas 8 1 1
Alex Beard Run out  29
Charles Sokol Not Out  2
Bertie Vacher Not Out  0
Thomas Hillman  
Francis Potter  

Stansted Park CC Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
J Lomas8.0029129.003.63
P Baustin8.0232132.004.00
J Johnson8.0132132.004.00
H Lomas8.0124212.003.00
R Austin4.001000.002.50
B Trafford4.0022122.005.50

Stansted Park CC Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
2nb 8w 7b 3lb 
for 6 wickets
20
159 (35.0 overs)		     
J Johnson b Y Bhanushali 0
G Rogers ct Hardman Bowled Beard 28
O Ayres b Y Bhanushali 0
T Shrubshall ct Y Bhanushali Bowled Dale 11
B Trafford lbw Lobo 42
S Henwood ct Hardman Bowled Lobo 10
T Joy Not Out  34
R Austin Not Out  14
J Lomas  
H Lomas  
P Baustin  

RNVR Cricket Club RNVR CC Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Yogesh Bhanushali7.021326.501.86
Francis Potter4.012800.007.00
Alex Beard6.0116116.002.67
Mriksh Bhanushali4.003000.007.50
Nevin Lobo7.0136218.005.14
Ben Dale5.0017117.003.40
Charles Sokol2.00900.004.50