Royal Household

Sat 30 July                               Royal Household                          Lost by 4 wkts

    We    179/8 in 41 overs     (Azam 45, Nayar 42, Jones 4/56)
    They 181/6 in 33.3 overs    (Morgan 109*, D.Allen-Turner 32, Nayar 2/9)

We were put into bat on the usual low and slow wicket that has deteriorated over the years.  Jai Singh and Usman Azam began brightly putting on 55 in ten overs until Jai, not looking his usual self on his happy hunting ground, could not repeat his heroics of previous years and was comprehensively bowled.  Soon after, Usman was adjudged lbw by the neutral umpire…hmm. 

Amit Shanker and skipper Neeraj Nayar dropped anchor and the run rate dropped appreciably.  The departure of Amit only made Neeraj batten down the hatches further and when he finally perished having a heave we were just 158/5 with few overs to tea.  Thanks to a late charge by John Behar (14 in 10 balls) we got up to a barely respectable score.

The Household were always on course for a win once the Kiwi ‘ringer’, Chris Morgan, and Deano got going in a 62 run second wicket partnership.  It was good to see the return of off-spin bowling legend John Behar wheeling away and being treated with respect by the batsmen.  But despite various bowling combinations, Morgan took a fancy to all our bowlers, John Behar honourably excepted, and hammered a brutal hundred to see the hosts safely home with 4 overs spare.