Shenley Village

2014

Sun 31 August Shenley Won by 3 wkts

They 257/5 in 40 overs (T.Bruce 107*, D.Bowles 67,A.Fall 25, Saurav Sen 2/64)

We 258/7 in 39.4 overs (Jai Singh 77, Rohan Ghosh 51*, Tim Keleher 44, Shahzeb 32, Saurav Sen 22, Will Gerrard 2/20, Sailesh 2/60)

Our inaugural fixture at Shenley Village was an excellent, high-scoring game, with a thrilling victory achieved in the very last over; a tough act to follow in future years.

Batting first on a good pitch with an extremely short boundary on one side, Shenley initially struggled against a strong Kensington bowling attack, reaching just 85 for 3 off the first 21 overs, which was certainly well under par given the batting conditions. Everything then changed with the arrival at the crease of Shenley’s overseas Pro. A big Kiwi, he proceeded to smash a succession of huge sixes off a succession of very generous full tosses, as KCC’s bowling became increasingly ragged under pressure. By the time the whirlwind was over and Shenley’s 40 overs were finished, KCC faced a challenging total of 257.

With a strong batting line-up and good batting conditions, however, we were still confident of being able to chase the score down. An excellent rapid fire opening partnership from Jai Singh and Tim Keleher, of 104 in just 14 overs, set things up perfectly. But after the partnership was finally broken, a clatter of 3 more quick wickets for no runs brought Shenley right back into the game. With the game evenly poised at 132 for 4 after 21 overs, up stepped Rohan Ghosh and Shahzeb Mohammed to stem the flow of wickets, and although they initially had to be cautious and work hard for their runs, gradually they gained the upper hand, compiling an invaluable 85 run partnership. Once Shahzeb was dismissed, Saurav Sen came in to play a fine swashbuckling cameo, whilst Rohan, continuing on to an unbeaten match-winning half century, carried us through to a thrilling last gasp victory with two balls to spare.