Hornsey Cricket Club 3rd Team v Harrow Town CC on Sat 25 Jun 2005 at
Match was Drawn Hornsey Winning Draw
Harrow Town III 224-9 (Dec) off 53 overs
Hornsey III 137-8 off 47 overs.
Harrow Town 4pts/ Hornsey 1-pt.
Disaster strikes the team with two post 12 o'clock dropouts. One big girls blouse dropped out with "asthma" on the cloudiest day of the year, and Oman just didn't show (again) and has possibly played his last game for the club for at least the foreseeable future. Their places were taken by George Charlton (aged 10) and Jack Bruce (aged 6) who becomes possible Hornsey's youngest ever cricketer. They both fielded admirably for 53 overs and were clapped off by the opposition, a very nice touch.
A terrible track, totally under prepared and dangerous if there were any quick bowlers around. Luckily there wasn't.
Hornsey were extraordinarily light on bowling and this was made worse when one of them (the opener, Mark Peters) dislocated his shoulder dropping a catch at slip in Johnny Bruce's opening over. This meant Bruce was in for a long spell and indeed bowled 27 overs unchanged for figures of 27-7-85-5. Bowlers were rotated at the other end, and Richard Charlton with 7 career overs under his belt in 28 Hornsey seasons was forced into a more than respectable 6 over spell of off spin.
Harrow recovered from 103-7 to 224-9 due to some sensible batting and some appalling umpiring. Plumb Lbw were ignored and an embarrassing caught behind not given. Jim Chapman, not prone to outburst, made his feelings known to the offending batsman and to the umpires in general. The LBW is effectively no longer a part of 3rd team cricket.
Chapman got Horney off to a decent start with his 31 and Bruce looked comfortable as he played himself in. However, some decent bowling on an increasingly unpredictable track and effectively only 9 batsman meant that the decision was made, sensibly, to put up the shutters with 25 overs left. Arun Sondhi had got the unplayable lifter, Mark Peters the shooter, so victory was out of the question. Even then, with batsman running out a draw looked unlikely. Bruce batted 25 overs for his 46, before playing on, but batted for 13 overs with Andy Myall, who then batted a further 10 overs with Emmerson to just about save the made. After a priceless innings Myall was out to the first ball of the final over meaning the draw was in the hands of our under 10s. Charlton Junior did well to avoid his first ball and to the second he scrambled a bye to get Emmerson on strike to bat out the over.
The 1 point felt like a victory. If we'd only had 9 men we would have lost, so the youth policy did us proud. The other potential deciding factor was the declaration. Their skipper told his batsmen that the 52nd over was the last and after everyone trooped off (and were actually at the boundary edge) he decided he wanted one more over and undeclared. So out we went again. That additional over may have cost them the match as they would have been able to bowl it at a 10 year old with a 6 year old waiting to bat at number 11. Probably served them right, to be honest.
J.Bruce.
Hornsey Cricket Club 3rd Team Batting
141 for 7
Harrow Town CC Bowling
Harrow Town CC Batting
224 for 9
Hornsey Cricket Club 3rd Team Bowling