South Hampstead v NLCC 1XI on Sat 28 Jun 2008 at 1pm
NLCC Lost by 4 wkts
NORTHS SINK TO 4th DEFEAT
76-6 v N Midd
95-6 v Twickenham
53-6 v Barnes
97-6 v Harrow
88-6 v South Hampstead
A North London number seven is by necessity a hardy species. We can focus on the positives - resilience and fight from the lower order most weeks - or we can reflect that the performances of the top order in those five games have cost us a lot of league points.
On Saturday as South Hampstead chirped and puffed their chests out at having us 88-6 the North London batsmen could only smile wryly. It was about par for the course on a pacey, bouncy batting wicket.
Chris Ridley (21), Mark Askew (16) and Neil Gill (21) had all batted with promise but insufficient substance. Mills, Noutch and Johns had offered much less.
In contrasting styles two elegant left handers, Tom Wakeford (45) and Jim Green (49), built a stand of 85 to drag the total towards respectability. It was a pleasure to watch both men go about their work, giving South Hampstead pause, then real doubt, and towards the end resignation appeared to be creeping in among the fielders. Wakeford was destructive and selective. Green has rarely timed the ball better, and middled virtually every attacking shot.
A final total of 184 in exactly 50 overs gave the bowlers something to defend, though the outfield was unmercifully quick, and we were still 40-50 runs short of a decent total.
Maaz Haffeji gave the opposition opener a fearful working over, producing several swinging jaffers to which McMahon could offer little more than a shrug of the shoulders. It was high quality fast bowling, rewarded not before time with a slip catch to the safe hands of Chris Ridley.
Kelvyn won an LBW shout against the other opener and SH were 10-2 when last week's centurion Paul Sylvester came to the wicket. His driving was absolutely out of this world and he raced to 40 in no time smashing both NL fast bowlers everywhere. Ben Wakeford took over from Smith and appeared to cause some problems with a shorter length on the bouncy wicket, but the run rate was still out of control.
Ben bounced out the South Hampstead number four, and had Sylvester hopping around when Norths came up with an innovative new tactic. Haffeji and Wakeford fired bouncer after bouncer at the veteran pair of Sylvester and Atherley. It was an unusual scene for a club game - and the batsmen were reluctant to admit they were rattled. For maybe 25 minutes we had top edges, body blows, fours and more body blows. We also had Sylvester caught behind hooking but the umpire "didn't hear anything". His hearing then seemed to improve as he asked what had been muttered by one or two of the fielders as he wandered off to point.
Vince Farley's whirlwind knock of 36 absolutely killed Norths chances as he laid into the returning Smith. Only Tom Wakeford (1-22) and Tom Noutch (1-15) came out with economical figures and both were almost certainly underused, though neither had to deal with the rampant Sylvester.
Perhaps we are the authors of our own misfortune. The number 7 spot is averaging 30 for NL this year, and a more orthodox batting order might be sensible...but then with South Hampstead 150-6 we saw the flip side of the tactic. Their regular numbers 4 & 5 came out to close out the game, having been held back for insurance.
Pity as this was another excellent NL fielding performance, with Ben Wakeford taking an outstanding catch in the deep.
But the bottomline is that it was the batsmen wot lost it.
NLCC 1XI Batting
184 for 10
South Hampstead Bowling
South Hampstead Batting
185 for 6
NLCC 1XI Bowling