RUASCC Season Review 2014

Another season ends and it’s been a very successful one for RUASCC: 20 games, 11 wins and only four defeats (and three of those were so tantalisingly close).  The wet weather in the spring and early summer caused several cancellations and also had a lasting effect on the pitches which were on the whole bowler-friendly.

2014 featured some remarkable games of cricket and some strong performances from RUASCC regulars and newcomers, as well as the occasional guest stars.  Here’s my review of the key players this year.

Michael Ward

456 runs @ 35.1

5 catches / 1 stumping

This was a fine season for Wardy whose consistency at the top of the order provided the foundation for several competitive totals and successful run chases.  After opening with successive half-centuries at Blewbury and Englefied, he later added two more on top of several scores in the thirties to maintain an impressive average.

He continues to do a tidy job when required to keep wicket, which seemed to happen quite frequently this year, and he maintained his 100% winning record as captain in the game at Frieth in which he also memorably contributed 28 runs to an unbroken partnership of 154 with Zia.

As Vice-Captain Wardy has demonstrated a commendable willingness to call Eagle a pussy’ole at any available opportunity.  Certainly a contender for Player of the Year, an award he last won in 2008.

Andy Eagle

239 runs @ 14.9

6 catches

Perhaps not one of the skipper’s most prolific years with the bat, but Eagle nevertheless had his moments.  He played his part in an opening stand of 78 at Englefield before the wheels came off, and at Hurst he top-scored with 47 as we almost chased down 198 to win.  And let’s not forget his vital contribution in the 20:20 at Birdlip where he spectacularly put himself down the order and let the other batsmen get on with it.

As captain he continues to direct his fielders without ever once naming an actual fielding position, but he ends the season with another hugely positive win ratio.

Jas Singh

131 runs @ 21.8

6 wickets @ 14.3

3 catches

Although he didn’t play regularly throughout the season Jas posted scores of 50 and 44 in victories against Braywood and Highmoor and remains a class act to watch.  With the ball he had mixed success experimenting with off-spin but took 2-9 at Hambleden.

Damien Murphy

121 runs @ 24.2

2 catches

Newcomer Murphy looks a useful top order batsman and he showed his quality with 46 not out in a massive run chase at Braywood.  He also saw us home in a slightly less challenging 107-3 at Kidmore End and is a suitably energetic fielder in the covers.

Zia Ul-Haq

480 runs @ 80.0

26 wickets @ 10.4

2 catches

This was very much a season of two halves.  Having contributed four fifths of fuck-all up to the start of August Zia joined us on tour and went caveman at Birdlip (62) before going on to dismantle Frieth (115 not out), Hambleden (62), Mandarins (74) and finally closing out the season with another unbeaten century at Dorchester.  Not for the first time Zia ends the year as the highest run scorer with the best average, with 432 of his 480 runs coming in just five innings.

It was a similar story with the bowling: Zia had six wickets from four games at the start of August and took 20 more in just over a month.  As well as the astonishing all-round performance at Frieth (6-42) he picked up five wickets as we almost broke down the Mandarins and recorded figures of 2-4 from an eight-over spell at Hambleden.

This is why he’s won Player of the Year in each of the last four seasons of course, and it would be difficult to argue if the committee picked him again.  With both bat and ball, on his day he remains peerless at this level.

Andy Greenhalf

247 runs @ 41.7

1 wicket @ 37.0

5 catches

Great to see Andy back playing regularly - he made a statement early in the season by getting off the mark with a six in each of his first two games, and he gave us plenty more opportunity to admire his destructive hitting with 58 not out at his old club Greys Green.  He remained unbeaten on 33 as we lost agonisingly by one run at Farley Hill – the ground on which he also picked up his only wicket.

Andy is an excellent fielder with a safe pair of hands so he can look a little bit out of place with the rest of RUASCC.  He does seem to have calmed down a bit since my early days at the club when I dropped a catch in the gully and he ripped out one of my kidneys and ate it raw.

Dip Patel

80 runs @ 10.0

2 wickets @ 31.5

5 catches / 6 stumpings

A quiet season with the bat for the Dipmaster General whose highest score (22) came in the very first game.  Forced by circumstances to bowl seven overs at Farley Hill Dip picked up two wickets at considerable cost and wasn’t given the opportunity to do so again.  Six stumpings shows he’s no slouch behind the wicket either, or at least it would if we didn’t know he was sometimes a slouch behind the wicket.

Karthee Sivalingam

93 runs @ 18.6

8 wickets @ 25.0

Another newcomer to the RUASCC family, Karthee picked up 2-19 at Englefield and chipped in with regular wickets at a decent strike rate while cheerfully refusing to be bound by the convention of bowling line and length.  Then halfway through the season we found out he can bat: a stylish 20 not out to help save the game at Britwell was followed by an impressive 39 at Greys Green.

Waqar Ul-Haq

77 runs @ 11.0

32 wickets @ 19.0

5 catches

No one played more games for RUASCC this season than Waqar (tied with Eagle on 17) and no one could match his tally of 32 wickets.  So consistent, Waqar can be relied upon to bowl long spells sometimes even with the new ball which can’t come naturally to a left-arm spinner.  After a typically solid start to the season he exploded at Mortimer on a damp pitch taking 5-6 as the home side were bowled out for 48.  He took 4-24 as we demolished BBC Caversham, but even more impressive was his performance at Hurst when he bowled nine overs (1-33) then scored a classy 30 with the bat on a baking hot day while fasting.

In my opinion another contender for the top prize this year.

Daman Singh

119 runs @ 10.82

4 wickets @ 41.0

2 catches

To be honest I’m still not absolutely convinced by this story about the Peppard game.  Omit that from the statistics for a moment and Daman’s got 60 runs in 10 innings, and yet you still want me to believe he scored 59 out of a total of 145.  Fine, sure, whatever, I wasn’t there - let’s go with that for now.  Don’t get me wrong I know he can bat, I saw him hit successive sixes onto the Kidmore End pavilion roof last year, I’ve just never seen him bat for very long, that’s all I’m saying.  But well done to him, must have been a great knock.

Bruce Main

62 runs @ 10.33

6 wickets @ 33.5

2 catches

Having moved away from the area Bruce is sadly no longer a regular in the line-up and the blow to the hand he got at Englefield would have put most people out for the season.  But he turned up when he could, picked up a couple of wickets in the only game on tour and made a top score of 26 late in the season at Theale.

Andy Ashman

15 runs @ 5.0

12 wickets @ 16.7

5 catches

A good season for the Good Doctor who managed 11 games despite missing more than a month for the World Cup – his 12 wickets from just 51 overs bowled gives him a better strike rate than pretty much everyone except Zia.  3-13 at Mortimer were his best figures for RUASCC, though we are led to believe he took four in a league game for Kidmore End, the same alternate reality in which Eagle is supposed to have scored a century.

Sadly given too few opportunities with the bat, his top score of 12 came at Mortimer where, in a seemingly interminable partnership with Withers, he laboured to drag our score up past 100 only to see us win comfortably by 61 runs.

Nadeem Javed

61 runs @ 30.5

5 wickets @ 11.4

5 catches

Nadeem only played six times this season but he made some significant contributions along the way.  At the start of the summer we still thought he was just an off-spinner and he did little to dispel that myth with 5-15 at Kidmore End.  But at Theale & Tilehurst he went into bat at 33-3 and added 121 in 20 overs with Adil, scoring the most composed, confident 45 runs you could wish to see.

It was then that we heard that he’s not really an off-spinner at all but a wicketkeeper-batsman, so later in the season he had a few goes behind the stumps too, much to the relief of Wardy.  All things considered a useful guy to have around.

Keith Withers

1 run (not out)

31 wickets @ 13.61

6 catches

In a solid season (as previously reported) Withers sent down 153 overs, more than any other bowler, and took at least one wicket in every game he played.  His best figures came at Greys Green where he took 5-34, all clean bowled, but arguably he was better at Frieth (2-11 in 11 overs) and Warborough (3-35 in 16).  Long spells and tedious strings of maidens are perhaps his trademarks, though he has also developed a nasty habit of dropping catches, as many off his own bowling as anyone else’s.

With the bat Withers continues to hide at number 11 and as a result was only called upon four times this season, scoring a total of 1 run and not being dismissed at all.

And he ran a marathon, you know.

Richard Tranter

5 runs @ 2.5

3 wickets @ 13.7

2 catches

Trant only bowled five overs all season but still managed to take three wickets thus proving yet again that you simply do not fuck with the TrantDog.

Best of the Rest

A prominent feature of this season has been the number of important innings played by guests and occasional players.  Dersh Patel only played four times but made 47 at Braywood and 35 in the low-scoring game at Mortimer, and Rupert Loader made 57 at Farley Hill in one of his two appearances.  Adil’s match-winning unbeaten 83 at Theale was a highlight, as was Rafiq’s classy 60 at Highmoor which seemed important at the time but our final total of 200 proved to be more than 100 too many for the home side.  It was in the same game that Saad (who only played once) bowled three fearsome overs and took two wickets before being withdrawn from the attack for reasons of diplomacy.  Fawaz hit 49 at Kidmore End and 30 against Dorchester – I missed both those games but I imagine he compiled those runs fairly rapidly.  Young Sam Griffiths only played one game, the Birdlip 20:20 on tour, but looked very comfortable making 41 not out.

Meanwhile, Tom Weeks scored a few runs and kept wicket, Chan Malde proved he’s still the best square leg fielder in Berkshire and Ken Stewart also played.

Bowling Update – 2014

Four years ago I wrote this and this giving a match-by-match analysis of my bowling performances in 2010 which were, not to put too fine a point on it, shit.

To recap, in 2009 I won the Player of the Year award (the last time it was given to someone other than Zia) but in 2010 I only took 13 wickets in 18 matches and felt like I had no control over the ball or the situation.  I go on at some length in previous articles about the possible reasons for this and subsequently took steps to improve - this led to another post in early 2011 where I talked about what I learnt from Bob Woolmer’s book The Art and Science of Cricket.

Don't worry, I don't have the time or the inclination to reproduce that level of detail again, but fast-forward to 2014 and it is pleasing to see:

*  My bowling average has improved year-on-year

*  I’m taking more wickets and conceding fewer runs per over

Season	Overs	Maidens	Maiden %	Wickets	Average	Strike rate (deliveries per wicket)	Best Figures	Economy (runs/over)
2010	133	18	14%	13	43.15	61.4	3-20	4.22
2011	168	32	19%	21	33.1	48.0	5-27	4.14
2012	161	28	17%	27	19.48	35.8	4-30	3.27
2013	195	43	22%	40	17.4	29.3	6-31	3.58
2014	153	36	24%	31	13.61	29.6	5-34	2.76

Although 2013 was my most prolific for wickets I believe I bowled better in 2014, and as a result have achieved my best ever average and economy rate for a single season.  Also, uniquely for me, I took at least one wicket in every game I played this year, so I can at least claim to have always contributed something.

And yet, I wasn’t even close to being the best bowler this year.  Waqar finished with more wickets in fewer overs (with best figures of 5-6), while Zia only played 11 matches and still finished with 26 wickets at a better average and economy than either of us.  But I don’t compare myself against others (much) – it’s enough for me to see that, at least for now, I’m a lot less shit than I was in 2010.

Greys Green (A) – 6.9.14

RUASCC 187-7 (35 overs)

Greenhalf 58 not out, Karthee 39, Eagle 32

Greys Green 80-8 (35 overs)

Withers 5-34, Waqar 3-18

RUASCC won by 107 runs

Part 1 – The Five Wicket Haul

Playing cricket at Greys Green is just so full of loveliness it’s easy to forget there are other parts of the world where wars are being fought, forests are being destroyed and people are listening to albums by U2.  Everyone’s so polite to each other; good batting and bowling are praised by both sides and little kids who’d like to bowl are given the chance to take a grown-up wicket.  Perfect surroundings, great weather - it’s a little bit like being on set in the Truman Show (I mean the nice bit before the director tries to drown him).

As far as RUASCC’s batting was concerned the politeness extended just as far as Zia taking guard outside his crease to a spinner and getting stumped, but not quite as far as Greenhalf who mercilessly pounded his old clubmates over the road on his way to a first fifty in muhumble mumble years.  He was joined in a stand of 80 by Karthee who looked assured at number five and posted his highest score for the club.

Of course there’s no room for courtesy between RUASCC’s front-line bowlers this year.  Separated at the top of the leader board by just two wickets going into the final few games, Waqar and Withers have declared the race to be very much on, my friend, very on indeed.

First blood to Withers this week – and a little bit more besides.  In a 14-over spell Withers clean bowled the top five batsmen effectively ending the contest.  It’s fair to say he needed a good deal of help from the pitch which had a soft spot just short of a length, but no more help than, say, Waqar had at Mortimer when he took 5-6 on a chocolate blancmange.  Withers’ first five-wicket haul since June 2013 briefly put him ahead of his rival, but Waqar hit back with three (lower order) wickets of his own to level things up again before the close.

Despite the efforts of Skilliter (34) Greys never looked like threatening the target - indeed they were more than a hundred runs short with their last pair at the crease when the overs ran out.

Part 2 – The Personal Best

I managed to disappoint everyone (except Waqar) by withdrawing from the Theale game for no better reason than I was due to run the Maidenhead Half Marathon on Sunday morning.  I maintained that to do both properly would be difficult, despite Dr Ashman’s assurances that it was perfectly possible logistically to get from the finish line to the other side of Reading in less than an hour.

The Good Doctor recounted the story of a friend who got hammered the night before a race, felt a little unwell after half a mile so took a break to be sick at the side of the road, then proceeded to finish the course in his best ever time.  By comparison I feel like I was somehow cheating by going home to eat pasta.

Because when you think about it, anyone can set a personal best over 13.1 miles when they’ve spent the last three months training for it, when they’ve been careful about what they eat, abstained from alcohol and meticulously prepared their race-day schedule, clothing and nutrition.  It takes a special kind of athlete to do it when they’re still shit-faced at the starting gun.  I am not that kind of athlete.

Anyone who’s been within earshot of me in the last six months knows that I am training for my first full marathon (in Bournemouth, October 5^th) and that cricket this summer has been tacked on to my training schedule.  As well as just proving to myself that I can get round the course I have another reason for running the marathon: I am trying to raise money for a local charity, BIBS, who support the work of Buscot Ward, the premature baby unit at the Royal Berks.  I have some good friends who spent a lot of time there, hoping that their 1lb baby would survive another night.  Well, Henry is now a healthy six-year-old, and he owes his life to the care he received on Buscot.

BIBS are raising money for their “Saving Tiny Lives” incubator appeal and would greatly appreciate any donations which can be made in the following ways:

Online:  https://www.justgiving.com/keiwit/

Via SMS:  Text KWBM79 followed by the amount you wish to donate, e.g. KWBM79 £5 to 70070

Having said all that, I don’t really like children that much.  Mostly it’s the proving-it-to-myself thing.

Just in case you were wondering I did indeed set a new PB in Maidenhead (1:37:46) while Waqar moved two wickets ahead of me again in RUASCC’s defeat at Theale & Tilehurst.

RUASCC Man of the Match:  Greenhalf.

RUASCC Team:  J. Singh, Eagle (capt), Zia, Dip (wkt), Karthee, Greenhalf, Main, Waqar, Withers, Ashman

Birdlip (A) – 8.8.14

Birdlip 158-5 (20 overs)

Zia 2-13, Main 2-33, Withers 1-17

RUASCC 159-3 (18.1 overs)

Zia 62 not out, Griffiths 41 not out, Extras 33

RUASCC won by 7 wickets

This was our third game against Birdlip, the third time Ian Green has scored 70-odd not out against us and eventually our third excellent win.  The only game of our 2014 tour saw the welcome returns of Carpenter, Manoj Kumar and Young Sam Griffiths to the RUASCC side.

Batting first Birdlip recovered from 9-3 to post a competitive total but Zia and Young Sam chased it down in the darkness with 11 balls to spare, Griffiths sealing the win with a six over square leg.  Up to this point it was Zia’s highest score of the season, and since Sam spends most of his time playing football and management consulting these days it was nice to see he can still use a cricket bat too.

Now, it would be all too easy to pick out the negatives from our 2014 tour of Cheltenham which is good because that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

After a month of sunshine in the UK it became apparent in the week leading up to tour that the weather was looking dodgy at best.  Tropical Storm Bertha was making her way across the Atlantic and was poised to dump her not inconsiderable load upon the west of England effectively obliterating Sunday.  No problem, we had games lined up for Friday and Saturday.  Hang on, except that Aldsworth just called and said they couldn’t raise a team.  So we were left with one 20/20 game on the Friday evening, which was played in near-constant drizzle and was completed before our 12^th player, Dr Ashman had even arrived in Cheltenham.

There followed an enjoyable evening with a good meal, plenty of wine and several rounds in the hotel bar before my 6.30am start caught up with me and I headed to my room faced with the prospect of a snoring Kiwi and an ineffective air-conditioning system.  Fortunately I was suitably anaesthetised and made it through to the morning relatively unscathed.

On Saturday we had to make our own entertainment.  Several headed to New Road to watch Worcestershire chase down 300 to win an exciting one-day game while others (OK, just Bruce and me) went for a walk up a hill.  This would have been a welcome excursion had we not spent four hours walking up and down hills the previous day.  Tiring of hills and walking, we headed to the nearest pub with a TV and watched the final session of the fourth Test Match (India 33-1 at tea, all out by close).  And that was as much cricket as we got.

After spending a couple of hours eating and drinking in the pub, it was time to go out eating and drinking.  Eagle had booked an excellent curry house but didn’t know where it was, so we all left the hotel following Chan, who also didn’t know where it was.  Fortunately Chan had satnav on his phone so we spent the next 25 minutes getting lost while Chan looked at this phone.  Having wandered down yet another dead end we were finally pointed in the right direction by a couple of locals and soon we were seated in a curry house far too posh for the likes of us.

As I looked at the menu, struggling to decide between the £21 biryani and the £20 tikka masala (I needn’t have worried, my meal somehow cost £38 anyway) I was presented with a jeroboam of warm taste-free beer that someone else thankfully ended up drinking for me.  That said, the food was nice, as it pissing well ought to have been for £38, and the company adequate.

Sure enough Bertha arrived on Sunday morning and soon it was confirmed that there would be no cricket that day either.  So for two and a half hours I sat at the breakfast buffet joined by various teammates in turn, reading a free newspaper eating croissant after croissant and wishing I’d got more sleep.  At 11am we all checked out of the hotel and decided not much else remained to do but get home as quickly as possible.

Fantastic weekend away, can’t wait till next year!

RUASCC Man of the Match:  Two wickets and an unbeaten fifity, I reckon probably Zia.

RUASCC Team:  Zia, Malde, Ward (wkt2), Carpenter, Griffiths (wkt1), Eagle (capt), Kumar, Main, Tranter, Stewart, Withers

Frieth (A) – 24.8.14

Frieth 167 all out

Zia 6-42, Withers 2-11

RUASCC 168-2

Zia 115 not out, Ward 28 not out, Murphy 10

RUASCC won by 8 wickets

It can appear, on occasion, that he’s playing a different game to the rest of us – there is after all a reason he’s won Player of the Year four seasons in a row.

But this was a truly extraordinary performance.  Has anyone in the club’s history has ever taken six wickets and scored a century in the same match?  I’ve seen Zia take wickets before and I’ve seen him score runs before, but I have never seen a game so utterly dominated by one player.  I have never seen anyone treat reasonable bowling with such flagrant disregard.

Set 168 to win we reached our target in 22.3 overs, and this was not a batting track – it offered plenty for the bowlers with variable bounce and the cloud cover helping the ball move around.  We were 14-2 after left-armer Harry Williams had once again proved too good for our opening batsmen.

Zia simply negated any threat to his wicket by smashing everything slightly under or overpitched.  The more he smashed, the more the bowling played into his hands - there was one straight drive that Dr Ashman umpiring said he heard “fizzing” along the grass.  There were cuts, pulls and drives to every part of the boundary - it didn’t matter where the fielders went, the ball was hit somewhere else.

Several of the home side seemed to accept their fate before the drinks break - in the face of adversity reduced to laughter and bafflement at the onslaught they were witnessing.  Williams didn’t return after his initial five-over spell.  Zia passed fifty with his 11^th four and accelerated from there, reaching the 90s in his tenth over at the crease.  At the other end Michael Ward played the perfect captain’s innings, running quick singles and rotating the strike to allow Zia to impose himself on the bowling.

Another four brought up his hundred and a few overs later a push into the offside sealed victory by 8 wickets.  Zia’s unbeaten 115 included 21 fours and two sixes, and a quick check of the scorebook suggests he faced about 55 deliveries in total.

Earlier in the day, after Ward had won the toss and opted to field but lied to us and told us he’s lost the toss and pretended that we’d been asked to field, Withers struck in the first over to leave Frieth 0-1.  Withers then proceeded to send down 11 overs conceding just 11 runs, in case you needed further proof that conditions were helpful for bowlers.  In contrast Zia’s opening spell was, by his standards, distinctly average and he was replaced by Waqar as the second wicket stand added 94.  Zia returned to wreak havoc, clean bowling four of his victims on his way to his second six-wicket haul on this ground in three years.

Ashman was unlucky not to pick up a wicket as two clear chances were dropped, otherwise the bowling was well supported by two run outs, including a direct hit by Ward which was remarkable mostly because the fielder had only one stump to aim at but it wasn’t the one he actually hit.

This was RUASCC’s fourth consecutive victory and Ward continues his 100% winning record as skipper.

RUASCC Man of the Match:  Oh do shut up.

RUASCC Team:  Murphy, D. Singh, Ward (capt), Zia, Karthee, Weeks (wkt), Waqar, Malde, Ashman, Stewart, Withers

BBC Caversham (H – at Kidmore End) – 3.8.14

BBC Caversham 90 all out

Waqar 4-24, Ashman 2-14, Withers 2-24

RUASCC 91-4

Greenhalf 40 not out, Extras 24, Dip 16

RUASCC won by 6 wickets

The outcome of this game was always likely to be determined by which BBC team turned up.  If it was the team we bowled out for 27 a few years ago we would probably be OK.  If, however, it was the team that turned up for this fixture last season, the one that scored more than 200 and had us struggling to a draw with nine wickets down, well, that would be an entirely different prospect.

In the end it was somewhere in between, but certainly leaning toward the “27” side.  BBC were reduced to 49-6 after opening spells from Withers and Waqar (the bowlers aided by three LBW decisions) and although they rallied briefly adding 31 for the seventh wicket, the lethal combination of Stewart and Ashman helped to polish off the tail inside 30 overs.

The fielding was unusually sharp with Nadeem in particular impressing in the slips and gully region, and the performance was capped by a sensational diving catch by Ward running in from the boundary.

Faced with what should have been a routine run chase the RUASCC response got off to a terrible start.  Ward (0), Eagle (7) and Daman Singh (3) all departed to leave us 12-3 before Dip Patel and Andy Greenhalf salvaged the situation with a partnership of 73 in just 14 overs.  Only Dip’s bizarre run out prevented the pair from seeing us home, but it proved to be a minor glitch as Nadeem clipped the winning run from the final ball of the 20^th over.

With tour coming up next weekend this seems like an appropriate time to sum up the season so far.  So here goes:

Out of 13 games played we’ve won six, drawn four and lost three.  The three defeats have all been close (5 runs, 1 run, 2 wickets) but at the same time two of the draws have been salvaged only by the last wicket partnership.  We’ve successfully chased scores of 212 and 193, successfully defended 109 and bowled opposition teams out for 48, 82, 90 and 104.

Leading wicket takers by quite some distance are Waqar (24) and Withers (20) who regularly open the bowling and carry the lion’s share of the workload.  In fact between them they have bowled more than 40% of the overs and taken more than 40% of the wickets.

The only other bowler in double figures is Dr Ashman (10) and he’s missed more than a month of the season for the World Cup.  The only other bowlers to take more than two wickets in an innings are Nadeem (5-15) and Jordan (4-26) but despite this we have managed to bowl out the opposition six times, more than we sometimes manage in a whole season.

Michael Ward (244) is the leading run-scorer to date having made two fifties and two further scores above 30 at the top of the order.  This bodes well going into tour where he typically cranks it up after a couple of beers.  Of the batsmen turning out regularly both Eagle (47, 31, 30) and Greenhalf (40, 33) have made useful contributions, but many of the standout knocks have been from guests and occasional players.  Adil (83), Rafiq (60), Jas Singh (50, 44), Fawaz (49), Nadeem (45) and Dersh (47, 35) have all put in match-winning performances while Loader (57) and Daman Singh (59) have excelled in defeat.

In a season where key players like Zia, Saad, Main and Baker have turned out only occasionally we have benefitted from more regular appearances by Waqar, Daman Singh, Greenhalf and Nadeem, as well as newcomers like Karthee and Murphy.  Credit should go to the Captain for putting together a full team (almost) every week capable of carrying a positive win record into August.

TOUR!!

RUASCC Highlight:  Ward’s catch on the boundary, probably the best of the season so far.

RUASCC Man of the Match:  Andy Greenhalf.

RUASCC Team:  Ward, Eagle (capt), D. Singh, Dip (wkt), Greenhalf, Nadeem, Karthee, Waqar, Stewart, Ashman, Withers

Peppard (A) – 13.7.14

RUASCC 145-9 dec.

D.Singh 59, Greenhalf 16, Harley 16

Peppard 148-8

Jordan 4-26, Waqar 2-28, Zia 1-19

RUASCC lost by 2 wickets

Have you ever sat alone in a quiet room, pondering the nature of existence?  Have you considered the notion that the world exists only in your imagination, and that “other people” simply cease to exist the moment you stop thinking about them?

Perhaps you can see the sun shining on neighbouring rooftops; trees swaying in the breeze.  Close your eyes, are they still there?  Maybe you pick up a book filled with the unconscious thoughts from the unexplored areas in the back of your mind.  The author doesn’t exist; that book is whatever you think it might be.

Weird, huh?  You invented God, Roald Dahl, Jabba the Hutt and Michael McIntyre.  What the hell is wrong with you?  Your wife, your boss, your bin men: all imagined, all lurking in the dark waiting for you to think them back to life.

Have you ever missed a RUASCC game?  Have you ever wondered how such an event might pan out without you, without the logical progression of the afternoon unfolding as you might experience it?  Obviously it doesn’t really happen.  You weren’t there, so how could it?

But it was on the fixture list so it must have happened.  And you didn’t imagine it raining in Reading that day so there’s no reason it would have been called off.  So in your logical, rational brain it must have happened, therefore runs must have been scored and wickets must have been taken.  But who, and how, and in what order?  Remember, the brain needs to make it somehow believable or the façade will slip and you’ll be confronted with the limitations of the universe in your own head and you’ll go absolutely stark staring bonkers.

Step one

In order to invent a story that makes some kind of sense you need to hear it from a reputable source: how about an email from the “Captain”, “Dr Eagle”  Or a match report from that bowler.

Step two

It needs to be somehow in keeping with what you expect: we couldn’t get a full team together, and we lost.

Seems reasonable so far.

Step three

Players you “know” need to be consistent: couple of wickets for Waqar; Greenhalf hits 16 in the middle order.  Righty-ho.

Step four

Leave no clues that the entire match is simply the concoction of a fragile imagination: Daman Singh scored 59.

Daman Singh scored 59.

DAMAN SINGH SCORED FIFTY-NINE!!!!

The world goes dark.  You hear the sound of screaming.  You realise it’s coming from you.

You are alone.

RUASCC Man of the Match:  Well, probably Daman if you believe a damn word of it.

RUASCC Team:  Alfie (guest), D.Singh, Karthee, Zia (capt), Dip, Greenhalf (wkt), Main, Waqar, Harley (guest), Jagesh, Jordan (guest)

Hurst (A) – 20.7.14

Hurst 198-5 dec.

Ashman 1-27, D. Singh 1-32, Waqar 1-33

RUASCC 192-8

Eagle 47, Waqar 30, D. Singh 23

Match Drawn

In the week leading up to the Hurst game, through long nights disturbed by thunder and sweaty heat, I confess that in rare moments of fitful slumber I had some very interesting dreams about my favourite scorebox.

One night I somehow took the whole scorebox home with me and used it to keep track of various television programmes, the quality of my wife's cooking and in particular each delivery by the postman.  In another I simply gave up playing cricket to become Hurst's full-time scorer, which on Sunday's evidence might not be such a bad career move.  I won't go into detail about the other dreams, most of which are simply too intense for a family cricket blog, but on one occasion I woke up clicking the bedside lamp on and off repeatedly in the mistaken belief that I was acknowledging an umpire's signal.

As it happened I did get to spend a very enjoyable couple of hours with my scorebox, largely uninterrupted, watching my RUASCC teammates put together a rather disjointed but at times thrilling attempt to chase down almost 200.  Later, once I’d emerged drained but smiling, I joined the post-match analysis during which it was widely agreed that the blame for not winning the match could be laid squarely at the door of our captain Dr Eagle.

Alas I didn’t take down notes of the discussion but as I recall these were the main points:

    *  He lost the toss and we were asked to field first on a roasting hot day.  Had he won the toss he would of course have chosen to field first on a roasting hot day.

    *  He dropped a catch at short extra cover and in doing so suffered a painful merger between cricket ball and knee.  He spent the next few overs sitting by the boundary with an ice pack while the Hurst batsmen picked holes in our (slightly) depleted field.

    *  His 47 runs were compiled too slowly and he should have got out sooner to allow faster-scoring batsmen to take up the chase.  In the skipper’s defence I argued that Eagle gets out quickly almost every other week and it doesn’t usually seem to help us.

    *  He deliberately chipped one to point on 47 to avoid buying a jug.  OK we still might not have won but at least there would have been a jug.

I’m sure there were lots of other things too.

Other notable highlights included the safe return of Dr Ashman from his trip to Brazil, a brilliant counter-attack by Waqar who hit 30 late in the game, and a massive car crash just outside the ground that stopped play for 10 minutes.  Fortunately it seemed no one was badly hurt but it was deemed serious enough to warrant an ambulance, a fire engine and seven police cars to close part of the road.

Earlier in the day Withers sent down another 14 largely unsuccessful overs (his only wicket coming from a low full toss) to take his season’s total to 96 overs in 9 games yielding a mere 18 wickets.  I’m reasonably confident in saying that no one in the RUASCC team puts in quite so much effort for such meagre results.

RUASCC Highlight:  Eagle getting smacked on the knee.

RUASCC Man of the Match:  Waqar, for once it was his batting rather than bowling that stood out, but it seems incredible to me that he even survived such a punishing day in the third week of fasting.

RUASCC Team:  Ward (wkt), Eagle (capt), Dersh, Dip, Karthee, D. Singh, Waqar, New, Tranter, Ashman, Withers

Whitchurch (A) – 28.6.14

Match called off due to rain

Friday

17:48

Me:  It’ll rain

17:49

AE:  May be one of those days!

Saturday

11:04

Me:  Rain

11:51

Me:  Update: more rain

11:58

AE:  Tomorrow looks nice

11:59

Me:  That’s good.  Have they called today off yet?

12:00

AE:  No, OK there.

13:11

AE:  Game off.

13:13

Me:  Well fuck me what a surprise.

13:14

AE:  Quite

13:44

Me:  That was a pointless 45 minute round trip to Caversham Bridge for a game I would have cancelled by 11am.  It’s been shitting it down for the last 3 hours.

Highmoor (A) – 22.6.14

RUASCC 202-7 (40 overs)

Rafiq 60, Jas Singh 44, Zia 27 not out

Highmoor 82 all out (25.1 overs)

Saad 2-2, Zia 2-4, Daman Singh 2-19

RUASCC won by 120 runs

Every time RUASCC are asked to bat first I spend the first 45 minutes praying that the game won’t be all over by five o’clock.  We lose a couple of quick wickets, the runs start to dry up and all I can see is us getting bowled out for 64.  It’s not that I’m a pessimist by nature, you understand; it’s just that I’ve seen us bat before.  In truth things usually settle down a bit and then I can relax, even begin to enjoy watching for a little while, before it’s time to pray that I won’t be required to bat.

I needn’t have worried this week, even at 22-2.  Zia brought along another new recruit, Rafiq, and moved him up the order; Rafiq obliged with the most accomplished half-century I’ve seen all season.  Jas Singh made an excellent fifty on this ground last year and could have done the same again but managed to send a full toss straight to deep backward square leg on 44.  Saad hit two sixes in an entertaining 23, although the less said about his reverse sweeping the better, and Zia kept the scoreboard ticking over at the end as RUASCC added 100 in the last 15 overs.

One imagines there are very few less enjoyable ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than having to face Saad bowling quickly, but watching from a safe distance at fine leg it can be rather thrilling.  (Plus his lengthy run up gives a fellow opening bowler plenty of time to recover between overs.)  New ball in hand, Saad tore in for three savage overs and with two wickets to his name was withdrawn from the attack for reasons of diplomacy by a captain who likes to win but not maim.

Unfortunately for Highmoor the first change was Zia who proved equally effective and at 16-5 the game was effectively over; the rest of the afternoon was practice.  Daman Singh and Waqar bagged a couple of wickets each, Ward looked every inch a competent wicketkeeper and we even held on to a few catches, but the highlight of the fielding was Chan Malde - stationed at square leg he saved countless runs and almost took the catch of the decade diving to his right.

There was some gutsy hitting by the opener who carried his bat for 45 not out but the other ten batsmen managed just 19 runs between them.  RUASCC’s 202, our biggest total of the year so far, never looked like being troubled.  I should probably learn to relax more.

RUASCC Man of the Match:  Tough call this week, shared between Rafiq and Saad.

RUASCC Team:  Ward (wkt), Eagle (capt), Jas Singh, Murphy, Rafiq, Saad, Zia, Malde, Daman Singh, Waqar, Withers