For this league fixture, Teddington played Richmond at QPR's training ground in Hayes. 4s captain, "Tooley" (Matt O'Toole) lost the toss and we were promptly stuck in in overcast conditions.
To say we got off to a slow start would be the understatement of the century, as Matt and Garry Meredith saw off 10 overs for only 12 runs; extras must have been ahead at this point as Matt was still stuck on 1. To be fair, though, Richmond were bowling from one end with slingy pace and from the other with the kind of tedious precision you often get from middle aged experienced bowlers who know how to bowl a good line and length. However, the patient start was what was needed as we were short for the second week running (9 + a very late "Dangerous" Dave Pearce). We plodded on and Garry and Matt had patiently accumulated 69 runs before Matt picked the wrong length to have a swing at and holed out to Mid On. Garry, however, continued to accumulate runs nicely and had reached his first 50 of the season, before he was out (also to a straight lofted drive). You can witness his dismissal on our Youtube channel here.
He'd been joined by "Shakey" (Neil D'Mello), who also picked off the bad balls and even picked up a couple of sixes, thanks in part to the short boundaries on offer. When Neil finished on a well deserved 46m TCC were 158-3. Neil's wicket was perhaps the highlight of the innings, with the Richmond player catching him nonchalantly using one hand whilst teetering over the boundary (I don't think even he could believe he had caught it). The tail wagged a little and we had managed to claw our way to 206-7 off 46 overs, before Tooley declared, thereby denying the opposition the chance of picking up a winning draw. They'd now be batting for either 10, 1 or zero points. Tactics, you see?
Ned Langlands-Pearse and Tauseef Khan opened the attack for us. Both bowled with effort and skill for long spells and managed to help us to keep Richmond struggling to maintain the required run rate. Ned ended up finishing with 16-2-64-2, which was a very credible effort. Economy seemed to be the order of the day with the rest of our bowling attack too, as Mohammed Omer Mirza (bowling for the first time in 2 years), Stan Nicholson and Harry Polhill all helped restrict their batsmen, whilst we picked up the odd wicket. Harry, in particular, turned the ball very nicely and finished with figures of 10-3-23-1. In truth, Richmond never seemed in danger of chasing down our total and eventually had to settle for 1 point, as they ended on 161-7 from their 46 overs. So, 4 points; on reflection, we perhaps could have done with one more bowler, but it was still a result that helped keep us in the top three in the league.