A short journey to Broom Road to face Twickenham with memories of last year’s low scoring fixture mainly down to a slow, low wicket coupled with a large outfield with a generous layer of grass had expectations set for a low scoring affair. Captain Dave, standing in for Matt, had done his homework and worked out based on previous results anything above 110 would be sufficient. Several hours later and 412 runs accumulated by both sides saw a good victory to Teddington based on the foundation of Olly Khan’s maiden century and a real team effort in the field.
Dave won the toss and we opted to bat first (it was very very hot!) and both Khan’s walked out to the crease. We got off to a fairly racy start as the wicket indeed kept low and scoring shots outside off weren’t easy to come by. Twickenham’s opening bowler kept a very steady line and length and when their opening bowler was injured the first change bowled with decent pace and also a good line and length, with the elder Khan being adjudged LBW Dilan came to the crease and Olly/Dilan ensured they saw off the bowlers till the drinks break. Deciding it was time to press the accelerator Dilan after doing all the hard work nicked one to slip and Dave marched out with and immediately stared to hit out, getting the runrate up before being bowled for 31, Elliot took over in the same vein but fell to a good catch before Tauseef hit a massive 6 before also departing. New batsmen found it difficult to get going on the wicket, Twickenham’s captain was “keen” at constantly adjusting the field and everything was slow going. Bobby Woodcock entered at 9 and with Olly they ran singles very well whilst Olly started to hit out, alas we started with 11 people but were down to 10 so at the fall of Bobby’s wicket Jag entered the fray with a few overs left and Olly on mid-80’s. Jag got his head down and ran hard between the wickets and in the last over Olly hit a boundary before forcing a mistake in the field to come back for 2 runs to reach his maiden century. We finished on 238 off 45 overs and in good spirits confident of a victory knowing it was a good score on that wicket.
Twickenham had different ideas and were clearly not going to give up their wickets easily. They had a good start, but like us, struggled to get runs away on the offside. Dilan produced a beauty to entice an edge to get our first wicket and Taus bowled a number of absolute beauties alas for no reward. Twickenham were unable to get the run rate required despite building a decent partnership and Hamza at first change broke the partnership and after Twickenham’s batsmen asked the Teddington keeper for batting advice was clean bowled by Hamza next ball our spirits were further lifted. Fielding was very good and Elliot in particular throwing himself around in the field. Dave ringed the changes and with several spinners in our side Bobby and Harry came on to bowl. By this stage we had several very good shouts with LBW’s turned down and with Harry’s first ball resulting in the plumbest of LBW’s turned down it seemed hitting the stumps and taking catches as the way forward. We continued to take wickets at regular intervals until Twickenham’s first change bowler walked into bat and hit a great 61 not out. We decided to attack the other batsmen with Bobby getting two wickets, Jag also got an early wicket in his spell however were held up by partnership which threatened to make life a bit tricky – not helped at this stage by the batsmen refusing to walk after a massive nick of Jag despite being reminded of the bowler’s age and the level of cricket we were playing. Eventually Harry got Jag’s wicket and a runout ended Twickenham’s innings on 174 to give us a well deserved win and credit to Twickenham for their bowling/fielding and batting performance. Olly’s innings made the difference for us and the spinners bowled well supported excellently in the field with only 10 fielders.
Author: Jamie Khan