4th XI Vs West Essex 3rd

The Brentwood 4th XI travelled to West Essex CC to face their 3rd XI and were greeted by an Olympic mogul run-like outfield, a wicket that was around three months past its best and graffiti genitalia alongside the statement that Gary wasn’t worth it. We’re not in Kansas anymore!! At the toss, it was another loss for Brentwood but with West Essex deciding to bat, captain Dan Ranns was happy enough to be fielding first on a deck that looked like it would do a bit.

Ranns and Harry Hobson opened the bowling and looked to find out what was the right length to bowl on this wicket. In his 2nd over, Hobson found out that full bunger worked quite well as opener Ollie Carter inside edged an attempted cover drive onto his leg stump. Remaining opener Ammar Zahid, who forced a replacement ball after putting the new ball into a garden in the first over, continued to play positively and joined by new batsman Rajesh Kanojia they batted relatively comfortably to take the score to 74-1 off the first 17 overs. However, in the 18th over, first change bowler Archie Russell made another breakthrough. He hadn’t had the best of pre-match preparations owing to the fact that he had forgot that he was playing and had to be knocked for by the Ranns brothers, but that didn’t stop him inducing Kanojia to nick an attempted cut through to Ryan Pocock at 2nd slip who took a Dwayne Leverock-esque catch diving to his left to dismiss the no.3 for 17. Following his solid 10 overs last week, Arun Gautham was again handed the ball as the primary spinner and didn’t disappoint. After a couple of maidens to start, he was hit for 4 through mid-wicket by Zahid but held is nerve to throw it up again the next ball where the opener danced down, missed and keeper Barry Brooks demolished the stumps to remove the dangerous batsman for 46 in the last over before the drinks break. With West Essex 93-3, it was about honours even but in Gautham’s next over Brentwood would take the upper hand as he bowled Anil Clarke for 24 and then forced Mohammed Sadiq to hit a high ball to deep square leg. Hobson, who was suffering with some shoulder trouble, forgot all about the pain as he scampered around from deep mid-wicket to take an absolutely astonishing one handed grab at full stretch, on the run and it lifted the whole team. With Russell’s magic wearing off, Ranns turned to brother Luke to try and make another breakthrough as Gautham continued to keep it tight at the other end. In his 2nd over, he made that breakthrough with a fantastic Yorker to remove Abdul Shinwari for 1. Gautham then picked up his 4th wicket when he bowled Nigel Carter for 10 to leave the hosts 134-7 off 31 and the visitors eyeing up a sub-150 score to chase down. Next over, Luke Ranns started with a couple of bad balls that went for 6 and 4 but deceived Shehzaad Chikte with a loopy full toss to bowl the no.7 for 23 to earn himself another over. In that next over Farred Hussain floated an edge over, the now wicketkeeping, Pocock’s head who managed to again take a tumbling catch with his big left paw and the hosts on 153-9. At this stage, Brentwood showed a bit of naivety as they relaxed and assumed they’d pick up the final wicket cheaply. That certainly wasn’t to be the case as skipper Colin Baxter and wily Paul Griffiths (25*) showed their experience to fend off the good balls and punish the bad ones as they put on 43 for the final wicket and frustrated the fielding side for 9 overs before the returning Dan Ranns managed to strangle Baxter down the leg side for 16 with Pocock taking his 3rd catch as Baxter very sportingly walked. 197 to win from a minimum of 42 overs was the equation for Brentwood.

Unfortunately, the innings could not have got off to a worse start as Brooks played around a straight one first ball to be bowled by Shinwari. It was the same story 6 overs later when Shinwari removed the other opener James Bainbridge for 2, again bowled, with Brentwood still only on 6 runs. After surviving a very close LBW shout first ball, Pocock and no.3 Kevin Brailey had to look to see off the openers. They hung around for 7 overs on a tough wicket to bat on before Pocock was removed for 7, LBW by new bowler Kanojia. 2 overs later the same bowler removed Brailey for 20 has he topped edge a pull to 2nd slip Ollie Carter with Brentwood 42-4 off 16 overs. Youngsters Jack Levy and Gautham batted positively and looked sharp between the wickets however the ever deteriorating wicket saw Levy removed by Anil Clarke as one jagged back a long way to bowl the young lad for 6. In the 20th over, the rain started and by the 4th ball, it was too heavy to continue so the players came off and the West Essex team attempted to get the tarp covers on in tricky, windy conditions. When the rain ceased around 20 minutes later it was a whole team effort to remove the covers without dumping the surface water back onto the wicket. The valiant effort of the original covers team paid off as following a bit of chat and the sun now beaming down the wicket was deemed playable. With 10 overs lost and the chance of chasing down the total gone, Brentwood now looked to drop anchor and bat out the remaining 12.2 overs for a draw. Luke Ranns and Gautham continued after the delay and stayed firm for a few overs until batting hero Paul Griffiths came on to turn his arm over. Just as a couple of people on the boundary were talking about how good a player of spin Gautham was and that he was the right man for this job, he hit Griffiths to mid-on where Nigel Carter to a good catch tumbling forward just before the ball touched the ground. Pocock and Brailey’s commentating certainly cursed words….sorry Arun. Ranns jnr and Amy Harvey sensibly saw off another 4 overs with fielders all around the bat before Ranns prodded at a Griffith’s delivery a little too hard and popped an easy catch to Ollie Carter in short on the leg side. Skipper Dan Ranns joined Harvey at the crease and they saw out another 3 overs before the returning Shinwari bowled Harvey to leave Brentwood 8 down with 16 balls left in the innings. Hobson went in at number 10 and promptly smacked Shinwari for 4 as he decided that attack was the best form of defence. Ranns then kept out the 31st over off of Griffiths before Hobson again smacked Shinwari to the boundary in the last over as the game ended in a draw with Brentwood 86-8.

A disappointing but not disastrous result with Brentwood struggling in the middle of the match following the spirited last wicket partnership by West Essex and then the poor start to the innings by Brentwood’s top order batsman but definite positives as Arun Gautham bowled superbly to return figures of 11-3-22-4, a much better fielding performance than last week and the lower order batsman holding out for the draw. So at the halfway stage of the season, the 4’s are in a better position than last year and with the club hopefully getting stronger now that exams/schools matches are finished, they know that on their day with a strong team they can compete with most of the league. Ilford away next week….who knows what sort of treatment we will get there following their ramshackle nature in week one where they were 40 minutes late and the skipper then left his bat at the club and hasn’t been back to pick it up since.

http://essexcl.play-cricket.com/website/results/2716146