Balham Roamers vs Whalers

Battersea Park – 11th July 2004

Whalers 223; Balham Roamers 62 all out
Whalers win by 161 runs

After last weeks mauling at Richmond, The Whalers bandwagon rolled into Battersea Park for the first time to face an unknown test in the Balham Roamers. In the Tinkerman’s absence Mildon was at the helm for the first time this season and true to from lost the toss and was put into bat on an unknown pitch.

Word on the park was 130 odd was a good score as Oz and Al strode to the wicket. Oz started well pushing the ball around the park. Soon in Al was bowled* very bizarrely with the ball squeezing off his pad and the slightest of touches past leg stump, no one really knew what happened except for the bail, which was on the floor. Oz played very nicely for his 32, until he got after the slower bowler and skied it for an easy catch. Dan Hall followed soon after leaving Ads and Dario at the crease. A crucial stabilising partnership followed. Hanmer’s signature shot added 16 runs and Dario crafting a beautiful 48 before being very unlucky bowled by a familiar council pitch delivery that stayed very low.

The big guns of Ed and Mike were at the crease and fireworks followed. Ed made a quick fire 21 (46461) out to a stray one down the leg side off his pad onto leg stump. Mike produced one of the most brutal (& small child endangering) batting performances in the Whalers History hitting 58 off 29 balls with one over going for 22 runs. Khalil added a useful 16 runs at the end to give a commanding total of 223. It was a well worked batting performance against a decent bowling attack – Oh if we could bat like this every week!

With tea consisting of 2 packs of Jaffa Cakes (thanks to Dan) it was a quick turnaround and out to defend this total. From the off the bowling was tight and penetrating with the fielding equally sharp. Khalil picked up 3 wickets (3 for 15 off 8); Ed’s anger over the lack of tea produced one of his best performances of the season, eating up 4 wickets (4 for 21 off 6). Kamal chipped in with 2 wickets off just 2 overs. No drops this week with Ads, Mike and Khalil taking good catches. We restricted the hosts to 62 runs off 21.1 overs, which gave us an early start in the pub, where all fines went to Sport Relief. For the record it was one of the best all round Whalers performances for a while.

Man of the Match: Dario with a great knock from number 5 steadying the ship and allowing fireworks to follow
Champagne Moment: Khalil’s very casual one handed catch to win the match
Muppet Moment: Al’s dismissal * 2nd quack in the space of 8 days!

Ads

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *