Report by Cam Petrie:
The fourth edition of the "end of season Remnants v NCI mini-test" on Parker's Piece was set to be a classic "Piece" tussle with the weather earlier in the week being particularly crap, and match day forecast having the "sun with clouds and rain" symbol to make things as vague as possible. Although the outfield was lush and soft, the pitch was hard, as indicated by the near impossibility of driving the stumps into the mysteriously rock hard surface - which was eventually achieved using a stump, a bat handle and then an inadequate mallet to help. The captains resorted to tossing a piece from a broken door handle as the only available disc-like object with two different sides, and with the call of "up", Remnants won the toss, and captain Cameron Petrie (playing against his Saturday league team mates) immediately sent NCI out to bat.
Our team today was a little under-powered in the batting department, but made up for it with six solid bowling options and some others that could be called on if needed. Naveen Chouksey (1/6 from 3 overs) opened the bowling today in the hope of securing the four wickets needed to have him crest 100 wickets for Remnants, and he started well, bowling the NCI captain/opener in the first over. We then saw an immaculate "dot fest" as Naveen and Iqtedar Alam (0/3 from 3 overs) held the scoring rate at less than two runs an over and had the batters second and third guessing. Things loosened up when Taha Ahsan (0/23 from 2 overs) came on and initially had some direction issues before Andy Owen prompted an autocorrect by insisting that Taha bowl round the wicket. John Moore produced some extreme "death from above" bowling (1/26 from 4 overs) from the other end to keep the hard hitting NCI number 3 in check. John also further becalmed and then claimed the wicket of the other NCI opener who was going at a strike rate of 9.09. The middle overs saw NCI build an actual partnership that eventually produced four boundaries to murmured cheers from the NCI supporters, but the introduction of Andy Owen (3/18 from 3 overs) and Marcus Baker (2/18 from 2 overs) messed that up, as a sequence of batters were bowled and one was run out trying for a very optimistic run hit straight to Cam (who seemed to have cast a spell that had the NCI batters unsure of whether to try singles or not - though until this throw had produced little evidence to show there was any particular danger). Highlights include Andy debuting a new delivery (which entailed him starting to the right of the umpire, running between umpire and stumps and then to turn to come over the wicket, and the dumbfounded batsman was bowled). Tim "Vim" Simmance was brought on to bowl at the death, and belatedly bowled the NCI no. 3 and their number 8 in consecutive balls in the 19th over, setting up a potential hat-trick in NCI's second innings. With seven wickets bowled, Remnants had bowled like true "Piece" veterans to keep NCI to 110/8 off the full 20 overs.
This total looked under par when Tom Serby (21 off 32 balls) and Cam (42 off 40 balls) set off at a gallop, though Tom quickly displayed his new (and particularly awkward and potentially dangerous) running style that involved one hand holding the bat and the other holding his box as the physical challenge that comes from forgetting your cricket shorts was revealed to all with every single. Although hugely amusing to the Remnants watching from the boundary, this wardrobe mishap almost certainly cost us around ten runs. Cam gave an assist by scoring almost exclusively in fours hit off the short and/or loose bowling being sent down by NCI's attack, which was initially notably speedier than ours. It wasn't until the 11th over that Tom was dismissed caught hitting to NCI's super-sub fielder Luis Carrasco De La Villa. Cam soon followed lofting rather than smashing a ball to Luis once again, at cow corner. New batters Neil Grover (9 off 11 balls and batting like a man possessed) and Lahiru Wijedasa (5 off 13 balls) tried to keep the scoreboard ticking, but the NCI bowling and bowling figures improved to the extend that the Remnants scoring rate dropped to 2-3 runs an over. Impressively, Neil opted to shelve the scoops and sweeps, instead playing drives that were punched through the ring, but he and Lahiru soon fell, as did Tim (4 off 7 balls). Marcus (8* off 11 balls) and Iqtedar (0* off 4 balls) saw us safely through to the end of our overs, but our 95/5 felt like we had left ourselves with too much to do in the second innings. Could we restrict NCI sufficiently?
Thankfully the answer was largely a "yes". NCI started their second innings/game batting order where they had left off, and Naveen (1/19 from 4 overs) again claimed a wicket in his first over - this one a stunning standing up caught behind by Marcus. He and Iqtedar (2/15 from 4 overs) were a little more expensive than in the first innings, but set the bar for an excellent bowling performance from everyone that followed. Iqtedar bowled the other NCI opener and drew a lofted catch to Andy at short cover in the one over, Tim claimed an LBW with his first ball, securing a personal cross-innings hat-trick, before also claiming two more wickets at the death (3/20 from 4 overs), giving him a within game/cross innings. Taha (1/7 from 2 overs), stayed round the wicket and was economical before drawing a lofted hit that became an awesome running catch from Lahiru (who had asked to be put somewhere where he would do less running). John (0/11 from 2 overs) and Andy (2/11 from 4 overs) finished our allotted 20 overs, keeping NCI stalled at 93/9 (including another within game/cross innings five-fer for Andy). This left Remnants 109 to win off the last 20 overs, and we knew we had some firepower lurking in wait in our middle order.
Remnants followed suit by starting with our not out batters, Marcus (17 off 16 balls) and Iqtedar (17 off 28 balls), who set us off perfectly. Marcus in particular made excellent use of the shorter boundary, including the only six of the game, while a hard hit drive from Iqtedar went to the longer boundary, and resulted in the only all run four of the game, which almost left both batters as casualties. When both eventually fell, Taha (16 off 23 balls) and Naveen (12 off 19 balls) took their chances in various ways, with enough singles and boundaries to keep the scoreboard ticking along within range of the required rate. Despite the good progress, we learned later that Naveen was worried that we weren't scoring fast enough to win, and opted to make use of a quiet/silent calling method that contributed to both Taha and then John (2 off 6 balls) being run out, before Naveen allowed himself to be hit on the pads directly in front. The clever gamesmanship in the plan was now evident as with the first innings tail/second innings top order now all dismissed, it was up to Andy (7* off 12 balls) and Cam (16* off 10 balls) to try and score the required 20-odd runs off the last 3 overs. Dot balls accumulated, but singles were snuck or stolen, and despite a clear plan to bowl wide outside off and block off scoring areas, Cam managed to hit some boundaries off the wily Richie Young to leave us with 4 runs to tie and 5 to win off the final over of the game. With the field back Cam managed a single, which meant that the field came up for Andy, who managed a lofted two, and then a sneaky single, which set everything up for Cam to hit the winning single off the last ball of the season.
Remnants have been on the wrong side of the results in the three previous editions of the end of season mini-test, but today was a fantastic way to end the season with contributions all round for both teams - players and reserved on both teams batted, large number of NCI and Remnants players bowled, a full 80 overs of cricket occurred, and the whole thing was decided with a lofted single that just landed out of reach of the in-fielders. As the sun was setting both teams retired to the Free Press to refuel and reminisce.