Report by Daniel Mortlock:
You've presumably all seen those village cricket videos in which the game is reduced to a sort of free-form anarchy, with crazy running, impossible misses, non-standard attire and even wilder bowling actions. It certainly appeared that TK's GEANT workplace team had not just seen these videos but used them as the basis for staff training sessions - anyone playing "village cricket bingo" would have filled their card multiple times over as GEANT's healthy supply of non-cricketers got themselves into the action. This did not mean, however, that the result was a foregone conclusion as GEANT did have a core of four or five strong club players and they marshalled comparably scant resources to defeat us back in 2023.
Having won the toss (inevitably), we opted to bat first, rattling along at 10 runs per (six-ball) over for the first half of our innings. This was partly down to our top three of Kaleem Chattha (28 off 30 balls on debut), Marcus Baker (22 off 17 balls) and James Deacon (30* off 32 balls, also on debut), all of whom gave good support to our real star: extras, of which there were 60. This was largely the result of GEANT giving their non-cricketers a chance to bowl - or at least throw - which yielded 17 wides and 8 (multi-bounce) no balls.
It was a different story when GEANT handed the ball to their proper bowlers as both Aman Tawar (2/15) and TK (2/4) took wickets and, more importantly, dried up the scoring. At 131/4 after 16 overs we'd long since given up on 200+ and in fact were some chance to be restricted to a total of 150-odd, which had repeatedly been chased down this season. Happily, we reasserted ourselves at the death as Trishant Simlai (12* off 10 balls) ran James Robinson (11* off 24 balls) into the ground with some wildly-enthusiastic calling, which induced a rare double-overthrow; and our final total of 170/6 was surely enough.
The strong GEANT top order scored at more than the required rate, helped out by some rather scrappy work in the field by us. The nadir was when 'keeper Marcus Baker made a sharp leg-side take, thought the batter might have overbalanced, and made a half hearted throw at the stumps; the ball ended unattended at silly mid-off with no nearby fielders, so the batters accepted the gift of an easy bye; James Deacon ran in from slip and hurled an angry throw towards the non-striker's end which the bowler, Daniel Mortlock, couldn't gather; and Trishant, at mid-on, was not on the right line to back up this unexpected throw, so the batters grabbed a second run, which induced a now riled Trishant to go for a run out himself; fortunately this time the Daniel was at least able to get a hand to the ball, finally bringing the cycle of destruction to an end.
GEANT's scoring also came to an end when Trishant (1/19) and Paul Jordan (1/26, and hence now 2nd on the Remnants wicket-taking list) took vital wickets and then Sajid Mahmood retired, having smashed 31* off 20 balls. This gave us access to GEANT's long tail, a fact exploited all too well by Iqtedar Alam (3/9) and Faruk Kara (2/24), who disobeyed their captain's instructions not to dismiss but to merely contain the batters - we didn't want Saj coming back in - instead opting to take a flurry of wickets. We of course also caught much better than in recent weeks, Trishant holding onto a diving catch at silly mid-off and James D. pouching two more straightforward chances at sensible mid-off. One of these left Faruk on a hat-trick, and with the incoming batter having to be instructed on how to hold the bat he surely wasn't going to get a better chance . . . only to be denied by an effective, if perhaps fortuitous, defensive shot.
James Deacon (2/1) then came on for an over of off-spin, also finding himself on a hat-trick; while he was similarly denied, James did complete a superb all-round performance, scoring 30 runs (undefeated), taking 2 wickets and completing 3 catches, =4th best ever on debut for Remnants (and joint top in short-form evening games). By this stage it seemed we could do no wrong - GEANT had lost 6/19 over the last few overs, enough for a spot on the worst collapses table - and sure enough Kaleem Chattha (1/4) saw his first ball for Remnants slapped straight to Trishant at mid-off . . . only for a no ball to be called as the delivery had bounced twice. Still, Kaleem did get a wicket a few balls later to also complete a fine debut performance. This was our tenth wicket, but GEANT were playing twelve, so that meant Sajid was unretired to join TK for the last few overs and they batted out the innings, finishing as the game's two top-scorers, with 32* and 39* respectively.
Still, a comfortable win for Remnants - and a welcome one, after four losses - that was made sweeter by the pizza and beer kindly supplied by GEANT.