Report by Daniel Mortlock:
This evening's game was decided within three overs as NCI's opening bowler Mujeeb Ur Rahman ran through our top order in a devestating spell of 3/1. After 3 (six-ball) overs we'd been reduced to 7/3 with Saurav Dutta (0 off 4 balls), Matty Wills (4 off 7 balls) and Qaiser Ahmed (0 off 4 balls) all back in the pavilion.
Tom Serby and Chris Badger at least stopped the flow of wickets (with help from the NCI captain, who took Mujeeb off after his second over), although scoring remained pretty difficult - after 21 balls Tom was just 11*. Chris, despite this being his first game of cricket this year, looked the more fluid with his footwork and timing - although not with his placement, several superb shots going straight to the fielder, including that which brought about his dismissal for an unfulfilled 12 off 13 balls. With our score at the half-way point just 34/4 and new batter Tim Simmance also struggling to score - he didn't get off the mark until his 12th delivery - we really needed something to change . . .
. . . which it did, as Tim (9 off 17 balls) smacked a couple of boundaries and then number seven Lahiru Wijedasa joined Tom for the best partnership of the day, hitting 71 runs from 48 balls. When Tom pushed a single to go to 35 he became the sixth member of the 4000-run club, not that anybody knew it at the time. In the final over Tom started playing with complete freedom, smacking three consecutive boundaries, which led to uncharitable suggestions that he was using Felix's bat - or even was Felix in a "Tom suit". The last of these shots took Tom to retirement on 50* (off 45 balls), leaving Pete Ames with the muggins job of going out to face the final ball of the innings. He duly clipped this for a single, only for Lahiru (who finished on 29* off 22 balls) to call him through for a non-existent second run, leaving Pete run out by yards.
Our final total of 116/6 was way higher than it might have been, but with the dry outfield our defense would have to be near-perfect, so not, for example, only realising that we didn't have a wicket-keeper while setting the field for the first ball. The call for a volunteer was eventually answered by Matty, who took one for the team - literally, as he suffered a nasty blow to the thumb, at the time believed to be just bruising, but subsequently revealed as a fracture.
When we did finally start our defense we began well, Daniel Mortlock (1/15 from his first 2 overs) making an early breakthrough with another "How dare you smack me for six!" yorker. But the NCI third-wicket pair then exploited the small target to play low-risk cricket, and most of the innings had the grim sense of inevitability as we'd seen at Lord's on Saturday morning as South Africa ground their way to the World Test Championship. While we largely kept the batters under control, with Iqtedar Alam (0/7 from his first 2 overs), Paul Jordan (0/12 from 3 overs) and Qaiser Ahmed (0/16 from 4 overs) all very economical, it was perhaps more revealing that we didn't generate a single genuine chance. The few lofted shots were well away from fielders; and Iqtedar's strangely vocalised LBW appeals - they were more like howls of pain - were rightly turned down on the grounds that he was pitching the ball well outside leg. After 17 overs NCI were 101/1 and still needed 16 runs from 18 balls, so there was perhaps a glimmer of hope . . . which was quickly dashed as Iqtedar (0/17) and Daniel (1/29) were too loose in their second spells, NCI completing a comfortable 9-wicket win with more than an over to spare.
