Match Report

Saturday 05 September 2009, at Cavendish Sports Ground, Field End Road, Eastcote - Won by 88 runs (Ref. 200925)

A good team performance brought Wealdstone Corinthians their first ever home victory against 10-man Arkley at the eighth attempt on an overcast afternoon at Cavendish. The visitors were short of batting, so Steve Brown decided to give his own team more of a challenge by choosing to bat first. Although Corinthians made a useful start, reaching 50-1 after 10 overs, all six of the Arkley bowlers took at least one wicket and kept it tight apart from the occasional expensive over. The pick was Gary Bollers, who swung the new ball sharply and picked up two wickets. For Corinthians there were no major partnerships but six above 20 that kept the score moving, and Phil Cundy with his best score of the season was involved in three of them after coming in at a precarious 109-6. A feature of the Arkley innings was that Corinthians held all their catches, four of them off Akshay Samarth whose consistently good spell gave him a couple of overs to try and earn his first five-for. The other main damage was done by Wakeel Shah in a pacy spell of two halves: 3 wickets for 2 in his first three overs, but 0 for 25 (plus five byes that could easily have been given as wides) in his other three. Before he could be replaced the last two wickets had fallen in an over of similar contrast from Chris Clark, completing Corinthians' Capello-like record of 13 wins in their last 18 matches.

Corinthians 182 (42.5 overs), P Cundy 42* (46 balls), W Shah 34 (30 balls), J Wakeling 23 (23 balls)

Both openers got off the mark with a leg side 2, and Raj Meswani drove Gary Bollers past mid on for the first boundary of the day. At the Brown End, Elliott Hind produced greater pace but less accuracy than Bollers and was cut for 3 with Naylor's best shot, then despatched for two fours by Meswani. He got his own back in the next over with a bit of outswing, and Raj edged to the keeper trying to leave the lifting ball. John Wakeling was soon off the mark with 2 through mid wicket, then he steered Bollers to third man for his first boundary and took another off Hind to bring up the 50. Not realising how quickly the team had scored Naylor tried to force the pace but only hit Bollers to Anson at mid on. Three overs later Wakeling hit Hind to Jones at square leg and in the next over Chris Brown, who had made 6, was caught behind off Bollers to make it 63-4. This brought in Dino Patel for his first knock of the season and he began to hit the ball hard, especially towards long on. Wakeel Shah cut Hind to third man for 4 and put Phil Knappett's first over away for 11, including fours through mid on and square leg. The 100 came up in the 21st over but the stand of 45 ended when Wakeel was bowled by Knappett, and after scoring a single Dharmik Shah was inexplicably stumped for the second match in a row off Jones. As so often happens Phil Cundy instigated the rescue act, starting with three 4s in a Jones over, the pick being a straight drive. He lost Dino LBW to Knappett for 13, then added another 27 with Akshay Samarth, who twice drove Spellane to the extra cover fence before being bowled later in the over. With the skipper another 23 runs were eked out in the next 8 overs, mainly in singles, though Cundy pulled Spellane to long leg for 4 and hit the economical Paul Townsend for another boundary in the next over. The slow bowler wrapped up the innings when he managed to hit the stumps of the captain and vice captain in consecutive balls.

Arkley 94 (24 overs), A Samarth 4-26, W Shah 3-27, C Clark 2-6, E Hind 22

After a maiden from Steve Brown to Anson, Arkley made the worst possible start by losing their other opener, Phil Jones, for no score when he got a leading edge to Akshay Samarth and Chris Clark just held the catch coming in from mid wicket. Clive Townsend hit two boundaries off Akshay but then followed an outswinger and keeper Andy Naylor held a good low catch one-handed to his right. "More agile than he looks" was the verdict of the Arkley top scorer later (that's keeper, not bowler). After beating the bat with no success Steve Brown replaced himself at 37-2 with Wakeel Shah and the reward was immediate, as his second ball was short and gloved by Anson to give Phil Cundy one of his easier slip catches. In his next over Wakeel produced an unplayable ball that would have troubled some much better players than the unfortunate Trebilcock, one of whose bails travelled an incredible 40 metres towards the boundary. Probably a club record, though Carl Mings may beg to differ. It started a run of four wickets in as many overs, with Knappett lifting Akshay to Chris Brown at cover, Spellane having two stumps splayed by a Wakeel yorker and Bollers giving a faint edge to the keeper off Akshay. In six overs 37-2 had become 47-7, and there were still 20 overs left. Wakeel showed the other side of being a "fast" bowler, the fasting taking its toll and allowing Hind to slam three boundaries off a wayward over to earn his Arkley career best score. Chris Clark replaced Akshay and began with such an amusingly lateral wide that he repeated it next ball. He had the last laugh when Hind couldn't resist the temptation and only hit an easy catch as far as Dharmik at point. Another wide and a four from Griffiths later it was all down to the pub when the last man was surprised by a straight one that went through the gate to hit middle and off.