Village CC's David Ireland writes...
"The Village (88/8) beat Victoria Park Juniors (87 all out) in a close and very enjoyable game played in glorious sunshine on a Muswell Hill pitch with all the consistency of a gravel driveway.
The Juniors opted to bat first and made steady progress early on. Notable moments were a huge six by Jamshed (sp?), straight back over the head of one of The Village's - and Australia's - quickest and most aggressive bowlers, as well as some fine - and on this pitch, intrepid - stroke play up and down the VPJ batting line up.
Set a target of 88 in 36 overs, The Village's batsmen initially backed themselves to sweat it out and ease home on a pitch with deeply variable bounce and sometimes no bounce at all. Their top order plugged away and opener Graham "Norton" Pontin put in a trademark, shizophrenic performance (all vigilant defence one moment and swashbuckling square-ish cuts the next) to be dismissed in the mid twenties. But while the Villagers were putting in the hours, they simply weren't getting the runs, their number three battling taking 13 hours to amass just eight runs. Soon, they weren't even putting in the hours. Some good straight bowling from the VPJ produced a series of rapid dismissals, mostly clean bowled.
With 3 Village wickets remaining and around thirty runs needed, the game was looking tight: runs were in very short supply and wickets were cheap. At this point, one of VPJ's younger bowlers, whose right arm round action and short, pacy deliveries had hitherto made him one of their most destructive players, came good for the Village, producing two consecutive no-ball/wide beamers which both ran down to the boundary and narrowed the deficit considerably. By now, the VCC's Eklavya "The Example" Gupte had his eye in and his fluent batting looked likely to take Village over the threshold. In the end the winning runs fell to the VCC's number 10, who, atypically, stroked a sweetly timed drive to the straight boundary for four, deciding the match for the Village."
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