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Another week, another home ground. The Presidents XI tour of South London continues thanks to the ineptitude of the Merton Parks booking system. This week, King George’s Playing Fields in Tudor Drive, Merton. Actually not a bad venue – nice level field, big boundaries and a pitch that looked more like a cricket pitch than the ploughed field that is Haydons Road this year. Granted, the pitch had been mowed many days before match day, or someone had applied liberal doses of Kwik-Gro, so batsmen facing the likes of Prakash were going to be in for a lively afternoon on a very green wicket.
The Presidents won the toss and decided to bat in beautifully sunny weather.
Danish and Jey set out at a lively pace, with Danish in particular giving it a real go. The Presidents were rocking along at over 7 an over when, with the score at 41, a huge drive from Jey connected with thin air and the very handy Morden ‘keeper whipped the bails off with Jey stranded halfway to Portsmouth.
Praba, next in attacked from the start and kept pace with Danish with some great hitting. Then a big hit from Praba almost went into orbit, but found a fielder on the way down who entertained the crowd with a fine display of juggling skills before finally hanging on to the ball. 53 for 2.
Khalid was next in but did not face a ball while Danish smashed another four fours to take the total to 70 for 2 with only 10 overs bowled. The comment from your correspondent that “We’re usually five wickets down by this score” proved eerily prophetic as first Danish holed out in identical fashion to Praba (even down to the juggling turn from the fielder) for a very lively 41, and Khalid and Mike followed in quick succession without troubling the scorers. 78 for 5, and things were starting to look as black as the skies had now become.
Tanzeel started, with uncharacteristic caution, to rebuild the innings. He was assisted by Prakash and Christian, who contributed to partnerships of 23 and 15 respectively, but with both of them out for 5 to the naggingly accurate bowling of G. Patel, we were well into the tail with the score at 116 for 7, with only 23 of the 35 overs bowled.
An excellently judged partnership of 48, the highest of the innings, between Tanzeel and Tony put the Presidents back on track, before Tanzeel was bowled by Patel for 66 (equalling his previous highest for the club). Will Thorogood joined Tony at the crease. Tony, having contributed just 3 runs to the previous partnership, now took the lead, combining rock solid defence with some deft stroke play to score an undefeated 27. Ably supported by Will (10 not out), they saw out the thirty-five overs and took the score to 208 for 8.
In reply Morden were immediately in all sorts of trouble: the fast, accurate bowling of Prakash and Khalid was getting some lively bounce on the green pitch. Prakash took out opening bat Hawkins’ middle stump with the third ball of the innings, and repeated the treatment the following over to remove Driver for 1. Both opening bowlers were unlucky not to get more wickets as several edges flew at speed through gaps in the slips. It was not until the eleventh over that Morden managed to score any runs in front of the wicket, with Lepp going on the attack with some slashing drives and building a strong partnership with H. Patel who kept up a running commentary throughout. After Lepp fell to an athletic catch by Jey (or was it Jonty Rhodes?), only the two Patels offered good resistance to the accurate bowling of Praba and Danish. No less than seven of their batsmen were out bowled, with Praba getting 3-18 off seven overs, Danish 4-32, and Prakash 2-27.
Final score, Morden Corinthians 119 all out, and victory to the Presidents by 89 runs.
Mike Edwards
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