Askham Bryan I vs Melbourne
Askham Bryan I 184-4 beat Melbourne 180 all out by six wickets
It was a dry and warm day (for September) in Melbourne. The players were greeted by a dryish track, with a fairly undulating outfield, giving a nice challenge for ground fielding.
Rob lost the toss and Askham bowled. Woody and Jim opened the bowling – both bowled well initially and were rewarded with a wicket each. Melbourne steadied the ship and began to look comfortable with a left/right combination at the crease, and began to put runs on the board.
Phil Theobold replaced Woody and bowled a good spell, pitching the ball up well and causing problems for the right-hander in particular. Parag replaced Jim and bowled straight and quick. He was unlucky on a number of occasions as the ball found the edge, but didn’t quite make it to slip’s hands (or gully’s, or elsewhere). Ujwal bowled one over to give Parag a rest mid-spell, getting some nice turn off the pitch from his finger spin.
The Grewer replaced Phil and was on fine form following an early night the previous day. Both he and Parag took wickets and Melbourne started to stutter, following a period of accumulating runs. Woody replaced the Grewer to finish off the job, taking a further wicket in the process, with Parag getting the last man by taking middle stump out. However, Melbourne did achieve 180, which would be a challenge to chase…
The tea wasn’t bad – a particular highlight being the victoria sandwich cake that early visitors to the buffet pounced on quickly.
Mr Allen and Mr Mohite opened the innings in reply. Parag was in devastating form with the bat from the word go, hitting two early fours and getting down the track to the quick bowlers from the off. Phil was unlucky to feather an early edge to the wicketkeeper, bringing Ujwal to the crease early on.
Ujwal joined Parag in batting positively, with his first scoring shot being a lovely pull to the boundary for four. He enjoyed facing the short stuff from the Melbourne bowlers, particularly when he hooked one of them for a big six over the square leg boundary, Ian Botham style.
Parag meanwhile continued to bat brilliantly, hitting the ball to all parts of the ground, including some lovely straight and cover drives. He got to his fifty off 26 balls, with the Askham total ticking along nicely.
Ujie got past twenty and was then caught at slip, with Mr Wood replacing him. With the run rate now not really an issue, both Pete and Parag worked the field well, hitting the bad balls for four and taking singles when available. Woody looked to have smote a ball for 6 after getting to 12, however, he was caught right next to the sightscreen by a deft piece of fielding.
The Grewer arrived with work still to do, as Askham still needed over 50 runs for victory. However, after a steady start, he and Parag took the game to Melbourne and played some beautiful shots. Parag had hit a marvellous hooked six earlier in the game – Grewer also joined the six club himself, with a beautiful strike over the boundary and into an unfortunately parked van.
Parag was honing in on a maiden hundred for Askham, with less than 20 runs required. However, on 97, he was caught and bowled. After such a beautiful performance he deserved a hundred, but it was unfortunately not to be.
Albert joined Grewer at the crease to finish the job off – he ended up 7 not out, with the Grewer 31 not out, scoring the final runs with a shot through the covers for four.
Overall, another great win for an on form team. If the whole season were a bakewell tart, this match was the icing, with Parag providing the cherry on top.
September 6th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Great report as ever. And well done to all as it was a great team performance.
March 14th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Here here!