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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.