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.
