Teddington CC - 4th XI Vs Hampstead CC - 4th XI, Saturday 28th May 2016

If you've not got time to read this match repot, I've summarised my feelings in this simple Haiku:

Difference between
Twenty two legs and eighteen
Is a gap and four

Saturday saw a top of the 1987 Div 2 table clash between Teddington 4s and Hampstead. Hampstead had won all 3 of their previous games, so were unbeaten, but so were we, even though we were 6 points behind them at the start.

The morning hadn't started so well, with one player injuring his finger and Fergs having to borrow Patrick Elway, so we started the game with 9 good men. Despite winning the toss, Hampstead's likeable captain, Andy, put us in.  Maybe he thought he could bowl us out quite quickly.

Despite it being a lovely, warm summer afternoon, Hampstead's bowlers found the energy to keep steaming in for the first ten overs. They'd bowled Edmonton out for less than 40 the previous week, so we were aware that they might have a good bowling attack. Dilan Camball and 4s cap, Matt O'Toole got us off to a fairly solid start and after 14 overs, we were sitting on 37. It was an okay start, but then Hampstead brought on an off spinner and Dilan was trapped in front and O'Toole (25) joined him 'back in the hutch' after mishitting a full toss to Mid On. Then young Freddie Koppler came to the crease and played a classy little innings and this, coupled with Faz Ahmed who was playing his usual beligerent innings, helped to get us to 93, before Freddie was out for a very respectable 24. Shazum then joined Faz at the crease and together they managed to take the score to 163, before Shaz (36) skied one. Faz continued hitting boundaries, taking 25 off one over and we'd made it all the way to 219 before Stan was cleaned up. This was a very respectable total and gave us something to defend, albeit with 9 men. Faz finished on 107*, having hit six 6s along the way - one was so big, I'd asked the opposing captain if we could have 12 runs for it, but he wasn't obliging.

If you've ever tried fielding with 9 men, you'll understand how much of a difference not having those two extra pairs of legs has on the amount of gaps it creates in the field. Hampstead got off to a flier and were quickly up to around 10 an over, despite Taus' and Dilan's best efforts. Both their openers had reached 50 before O'Toole gave his quicker leg spin a shot and we managed to get one of them out. However, with gaps as wide as the current budget deficit, Hampstead continued to accumulate runs at pretty much the same rate, despite what bowling option we chose. The effort in the field was definitely not lacking, especially from Archie who ran his socks off and Freddie also looked very capable behind the stumps, but we were always facing an uphill task and so it proved, as Hampstead comfortably knocked off the remaining runs for the loss of only 4 wickets in just over 21 overs. We hadn't even had a chance to take drinks or get Stan to lob some balls at them. To be fair, they could have taken all afternoon in reaching that total, but some of them had said they'd been in a hurry to go watch the Champions League final.

We just need better availability and less unexpected injuries and I'm sure we'll still be in better shape to beat them at their place at the end of July.

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Teddington 4th XI vs Indian Gymkhana, 21st May, 2016

Indian Gymkhana vs Teddington 4th XI, 21st May, 2016 @ Northwick Park, South Kenton, Wembley

The 4s played Indian Gym in this league fixture.  After receiving a phone call on the morning to tell us that we had a new venue for the game, Matt hastily made arrangements for the team to go to Kenton.

It was a big place and quite a nice place to play cricket. The square was reasonable and we had a nice view of the arches of Wembley where Palace were about to lose what looked like a good FA Cup final to Man Utd. But back to cricket!

Matt lost the toss and Teddington were promptly put into back in overcast, cool conditions. It looked like it was going to be a tricky place to get a decent total. Dilan opened with Patrick Crossley, but Dilan got a slight nick behind in the first over and we were 2-1. Patrick hit four boundaries before he was cleaned up for 19 (the banner at the top of this report actually captures the moment before that happened - you can just see the ball mid-flight, if you zoom in). We were 36-2 after 10, so it was a slow start.

Garry Meredith and Matt O'Toole then knuckled down and tried to build a partnership and managed to take us to 76, before Garry was trapped in front. 76-3. Faz pushed at one on the final ball before drinks, despite being told by Matt to make sure he survived until after the drinks break (you had one job, Faz!). Matt produced what can only be described as a golf shot for 6, then holed out to long on, trying to do the same thing. Hasan Mufti came and went quickly.

At this point, we were 90-6 and it wasn't looking great. Then it became the 'Taus' and 'Shakey' show as Neil D'Mello and Tauseef Khan managed to add 50, most of them coming from Taus and we found ourselves on 140-6 after 37 overs, before Neil was out for a sensible 16. Taus continued to beligerently bludgeon almost everything he could reach (you can see some of these shots on our Youtube channel), but he did actually hit a few along the floor and also produced the occasional forward defensive (look! I've got photographic evidence below). 

 

Taus then pretty much single handedly helped take us to a very decent looking 198-9 after 50 overs, after Matt decided against declaring, even thought the runs in the final few dried up rather after Tauseef had departed for a muscular 69 (9 x 4s and 2 x 6s). Still, 199 to win on that deck looked a pretty tough ask.

Matt then asked Taus to continue his one man show with the ball and we were looking okay for a good while. After 21 overs, we had them at 67-6. Taus had bowled a good line and been rewarded with 3 wickets. This period also included a great spell by Harry Polhill who had been a very late call up was playing his first game for 6 years! He took 2 wickets in his first over for 1 run and ended up with figures of 6-0-20-3. That's three weeks in a row now we've had debutants produce a great performance (he was good in the field too). When we had them 7 down, it looked like they were stuck either in a position of either having to gamble and go for a win or just accept 1 point and block out the remaining overs. However, they then put on a good 8 wicket partnership which meant that we were in danger of giving them 4 points as were running out of overs and they were steadily getting towards the 167 they need for a winning draw. 1 over to go and Matt got the umpires to get their calculators out before the final over to agree the target with the other captain (a nice chap called Nandan). They were on 156-8, so needed 11 to get 4 points or an impossible 43 to win. We needed 2 wickets. First ball. Blocked. Matt asked their batter what he was doing and was told that he was following instructions. It proved to be a ruse, though, as Faz's next ball was put back over his head for 6. 5 off 4. This was beginning to look like an IPL finish. Matt brings everyone right in. They get a couple. Dammit. 3 off 3. A single. 2 off 2. New bat now facing tho. They go for a single. Garry quickly collects and gets the ball back to Matt. Out! So after almost 7 hours, it all came down to the last ball. Their No. 11 needed to score 2 off the last ball to get them 4 points. We needed to get him out to win or to stop them getting more than 1 run. Faz is told by almost the whole team to bowl at the stumps. The ball is delivered a foot outside off (you had one job, Faz!), a swing and a miss and Teddington pick up 4 points for their efforts. Not what we would have wanted from the position we were in but we're still unbeaten so far this season, so all in all a great start. We're currently 2nd in the league! :)

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Finchley 4th XI vs Teddington 4th XI - 7th May, 2016

The sun was shining. We had a full team. The opposition were a friendly bunch. Blue skies, happy faces, green grass, the sound of leather on willow, isn't it.... what's not to like?

The 4s opened this season away to Finchley. We'd done the double on them last season, having beaten them by over 200 runs at our place and having won on the last ball with Headless proving that he can scamper 22 yards at pace when he needs to, even with those dodgy knees. But that was last year and a new season dawned.

We won the toss TCC opted to bat first, mainly because the sun was shining and new 4s cap, Matt O'Toole wanted us ideally to keep them out for 50 overs as it was meant to be getting warmer. The pitch was like a soft sprung mattress, with anything short just sitting up and saying "Hit me!". The ground also benefitted from very short boundaries. Matt opened with a newbie (Dilan Campbell). We got off to a solid start, before Tooley was pinned in front of leg stump and given out LBW by Taus (I have to say the umpiring was very fair throughout the game  - we gave them 4 LBWs and they gave us one). 27-1. The FOWs was then 60-2, 72-3, 96-4, 100-5 and then 114-6. We then lost two more wickets for no more runs and it looked like we were going to struggle to put on a defendable total (~160 at this place, according to Vice Captain, Shakey) when Dilan Camball was also adjudged LBW. Dilan finished on 41 (1 x 6s, 5 x 4s), having batted very well on his debut for over 35 overs. Three more debutants - Shazum Butt, Nick McLellan and Ned Langlands-Pearce then all contributed some very useful runs. Nick added a a fluent 21 runs and, with the last 2 wickets adding 43 runs, runs which were to prove crucial later, TCC finished on 157 ao, with extras contributing 28 (one of their bowlers finishing with figures of 15.2-6-33-4).

In reply, they got off to the worst possible start as Ned on debut got a wicket with his very first ball in competitive cricket for TCC, the Finchley opener swishing at one outside off and Tooley taking an easy catch in his buckets. First ball duck! I think that's a platinum duck, right, if it's the very first ball of the innings? Their innings went from bad to worse quite quickly when Tauseef got the ball swinging from the other end. They were quickly 6-2 off 3, then 9-3, 22-4, 27-5, 33-6, 34-7 and then 40-8 and we hadn't even had drinks yet! One of these wickets involved Taus delivering a ball that swung more than someone attending a wife swapping party, bowling the Finchley batsman around his legs and clipping top of leg stump. It was a beautiful thing to behold Taus finished with 11-2-22-4 and Ned returned 10.1-2-12-5. A five-for on his debut! Great start! Well done, lad!

However, if we thought they were now going to rollover, their captain ('H') had other ideas and added 69 more runs with their beefy No 10 and after we finally got him out, they were 109-9. From that point, it was still precarious as their No 11 helped their captain to keep the board ticking over. I think we dropped at least four catches in the field during this period, so it wasn't as if we hadn't had chances to finish the game. A change of attack did the trick, though, as Ned with his very first ball of his second spell, got one to bend back in and uproot their captain's middle stump. Finchley finished 132ao, so we ended up winning by 25 runs. The best possible start to a new season. Let's keep it up and get us back up this season to the top tier!

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Teddington CC - 4th XI Vs Twickenham CC - 5th XI, Saturday 29th August 2015

The 4s played their final home match of the season vs local rivals Twickenham. Despite their proximity and their captain being there in plenty of time we managed to follow the usual trend of starting at least 15 minutes late which set the tone for the day ahead.

Headless won the toss and we batted as we were now safe from relegation after Ealing conceded their game mid week.

Matt O'Toole and debutant Will Greenall got us off to a really good start. In fact Will hit his first ball in senior cricket calmly for 4. The opening stand of 102 was scored at a good rate on a slow wicket. Will ending up on 21 at the fall of the first wicket. Matt O'Toole continued on his merry way hitting as many to the boundary, 13x4′s & 2x6′s, as he missed before departing for his highest score for Teddington, a well made 83. Check his social media pages for a ball by ball breakdown of his innings.

Oisin and Shakey continued with the early momentum from the openers and with a cameo from Bob Fleming, 26, his runs not his age we declared on 267 for 4 off 48 with Shakey unbeaten on 70. Thereby preserving Headless’s average by deciding to drop down the order.

A break for rain of over an hour meant Twickenham needed 160 off 28 for 4 points. We were keen to play to give everyone an opportunity but sadly our enthusiam was not matched by the opposition total lack thereof. Their captain opting for 1 point from ball 1.

So the game ended in the dark after 26 overs at 101 for 3. Roy with 2 wickets and Jago with 1. The 4th team league does throw up some bizarre and interesting spectacles  and your correspondent is always surprised with what will happen next, but this was up there with the best of them.

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