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CC de l’Oust beat Doctors by 82 runs CC de l'Oust 225 for 9 Doctors 143 for 9 Doctors lost the toss but were
not unhappy to bowl first on a Serent pitch covered in long, shaggy grass in
the middle of a football ground. The
vagaries of the wicket were offset by the very short boundaries and Hamed
(16) from Afghanistan began the innings aggressively until Phil Barker took
an outstanding, tumbling catch at long on from the bowling of Phil Pidgeon
(1-11). Tom Adams (1-20) removed Sigra
Khan, caught by Doug Johnson and Harry Lee ended a gritty vigil by Jon Ward
(14) via a catch by Nick Smyth at first slip.
The problem for the visitors was at the other end where French
international player Rana used all of his skill to negate the variable bounce
and lateral movement and used the aerial route to punish any small lapse in
line or length with a boundary. At
last Peter Reed (1-35) found a way to dismiss Rana (56) with a leg cutter
that deviated by eighteen inches and clipped the off bail and Harry Lee had
Bala Ponduragan (11) lbw. Sadly for
Doctors this did not end the pain as Wayne Ackroyd launched a violent assault
on some woefully sort-pitched bowling.
Rather belatedly Barker (2-16) was summoned for an excellent spell
which staunched the run haemorrhage and persuaded Ackroyd (51) to offer a
catch to Johnson at fine leg. Richard
Lee (1-34) contributed a useful wicket, as did run-outs by Reed and Harry Lee
but the game was taken out of reach by a display of leg-side hitting from Lee
Snelling (38 n.o.). To say that Doctors' top-order
batsmen struggled with the pace and accuracy of opening bowlers Hamed and
Nisa would be an understatement. For
the first time every Doctors batsman wore a helmet and on two occasions they
saved a head injury. Barker sensibly
played on the back foot but was undone by a shooter from Nisa (2-10) and then
the ubiquitous pair of Rana (1-9) and Ackroyd caused further havoc. Rob Moore (10) hung in but was eventually
caught behind. Graham Fergusson was
also given out caught behind and thereafter the only batsman to look at ease
was Harry Lee (30) until he was caught by Hamid off Ackroyd (2-12). The gentler pace of Snelling (2-37) and
Bala (3-23) was still bouncing head high and the wicket's variability was
more than enough to account for the lower order. Sam Powell (29) adopted the tactic of
batting well down the track and smashing everything in reach over the
boundary but when he was caught at long on the game was up. |