Report by Daniel Mortlock
While it's not unheard of for players to bring a few beers to a game, it's decidedly less common for a cake to appear in the dressing room - but that's what, thanks to Marcus's thoughtful generosity, we got this evening to celebrate Faruk Kara's 400th Remnants game Faruk hence joined the ultra-exclusive club whose only current members are Paul Jordan (444 games and counting) and club founder Geoff Hales (401 games and, sadly, no longer counting) - although a membership application has been submitted by Daniel Mortlock (playing his 399th game this evening).
Before we could formally celebrate Faruk's achievement, however, we needed an opposition to play - and the appearance of "NCI" at the top of the page is, these days, a worrying sign: it's as likely as not to mean some other club couldn't field a team. As was indedd the case tonight, the Woozlers who announced yesterday that "Unfortunately it looks like we have lost one more player, so down to 6 (with one turning up late)." Aside from the potential loss of a game on what promised to be - and indeed was - the most glorious of evenings, this was doubly annoying as out playing eleven was super-strong and surely set for a rare victory against even a full-strength Woozlers side after ten largely barren years. While we're of course grateful that NCI could put out a side at such short notice, it's becoming increasingly easy to imagine a cricket season in the next decade consisting entirely of Remnants vs. NCI games.
Having won the toss we elected to bat and, with retirements at 30, had no hesitation in top-loading the batting order, one of the strongest the club has ever had. First up were the wicket-keepers, Marcus Baker and Martin Heginbotham, who found themselves in a battle for the ages . . . albeit only with with each other to see who could hit the ball the hardest. While both retired on 31*, Martin scored both a points victory (reaching 30 from 16 balls compared to Marcus's 27) and a knock-out, courtesy of an enormous pull shot which saw the new ball not just retired but dead and buried. Next up was the Antipodean pairing of J-P Joubert (11 off 10 balls) and Neeban Balayasoderan (32* retired off 17 balls), who scored just as fast, but with more finesse and less brute force as they sent the ball speeding across the ground rather than through the air. At the half-way point of the innings we were 85/0, and it was tempting to think that even a modest acceleration would get us close to 200 . . .
. . . but instead NCI made an excellent comeback as they dominated and then dismissed our "middle England middle order", just 38 runs coming from our final 60 deliveries, 5 of which yielded wickets. Coming in at number 9, man-of-the-moment Faruk at least managed to stop the avalanche of wickets, albeit seemingly at some physical cost as he started walking off towards the pavilion with an over to go. Fortunately, it was quickly established that he was fine and had decided to retire himself on the grounds that he wasn't scoring fast enough. While this was unarguably true - Faruk finished on 2* off 14 balls - we're not quite as cutthroat as the United Arab Emirates Women's team (who effectively declared in a recent international by retiring out their entire batting line-up to beat the rain), and Faruk was sent back out to the middle. The net result: we finished with what, given our amazing start, was a remarkably mediocre total of 123/5 that was no more than competitive.
Suitably warmed up after his innings, Faruk was of course given the new ball (metaphorically at least), taking a wicket and conceding just a single off his first over. Not to be outdone, Max Ayliffe (2/18) managed the same thing, with the extra bonus that his wicket was danger-man Cam Petrie (captaining NCI today, but fresh off a top knock for Remnants last night). Qaiser Ahmed (1/19), bowling the third over, couldn't manage a three-peat as his first two balls were cut to the short boundary . . . the result of which was that his third and fourth balls were about twice as fast, as he first beat and then bowled the offending batter. This sequence was repeated in miniature when the batters decided to go for the cheekiest of singles having hit the ball to Neeban at mid-on, who had time to verbally expess his offence that the batters were taking on his arm before effecting a direct-hit run out. And then, after Taha Ahsan (1/35) took a wicket with his second ball, we'd reduced NCI to 30/5.
With 95 runs needed from 70 balls we'd perhaps have hoped we could relax and get the celebration started . . . but NCI's lower order had other ideas, 48 runs coming from the next three overs, after which the required rate was, for the first time all innings, less than a run a ball. Martin Heginbotham (0/4) stemmed the tide with an immaculate over with seven dots balls, for which his reward was to be taken off by Daniel (1/25) to bowl a second spell, which he began with a wide which bounced off the cut strip . . . twice. The next few overs were boundary-free but the batters kept scampering ones and twos, with the result that the final over began with NCI on 107/8 (although we thought it was 106/8 at the time), so 17 off 8 needed to win.
That was the perfect scenario for Faruk to finish things off, although after being (correctly) no balled for hitting the non-striker's wicket with his foot, 6 runs had come from his first two legitimate deliveries, meaning the equation was an almost even 11 off 6. But you don't get to play 400 Remnants games for nothing and just five singles came from the rest of the over, as Faruk finished with figures of 2/12, his second wicket taking him to equal-top of the season's bowling averages with 6 wickets at 10.50. Faruk was duly clapped from the ground as he got to have his cake and eat it.
