Penn Street vs Chiltern Crusaders

Penn Street CC 203 (V. Goundar 77: J. Slater 3-18, T. Slater 3-41) lost to Chiltern Crusaders CC 216 (J. Daniel 46, A. Bartlett 45, G. Partridge 41: V. Goundar 3-12) by 13 runs

The winning run had to come to an end sometime, but this was a bit disappointing. It was a game that Penn Street didn’t deserve to win, given the two batting collapses (more on those later) and the numerous dropped catches. Indeed, were it not for a one man performance from Vishal Goundar they would not have been close at all.

Chris Russell, on his big match captaincy debut, lost the toss and Penn Street were sent out to field in the lunchtime sun. Jamie Fryer gamely opened the bowling from the Pub End, despite having suffered what seemed to be a serious neck injury the night before. Unfortunately the amount of lift he got out of the pitch was meat and drink to an opposition batter who wouldn’t know a front foot shot if it kicked him in the shins. From the Wood End, however, Goundar was having a great time, proving to be largely unplayable, skittling the Crusaders’ numbers two and three, and, at one point, having the remarkable figures of 3-3-0-2.

Crusaders enjoyed a brief revival for the third wicket, but then captain Russell had a brainwave and brought on Jonny Barnett. Almost immediately the stitched back-foot opener edged a cut behind, where the skipper gobbled the catch. Soon after Goundar rounded off an excellent spell with his third wicket, all bowled, to leave Crusaders 62-4.

There was another short revival courtesy of the Slater family and it was Ben Hobbs, for once bowling like someone who had done it before, who got them both, first getting Son to hole out to that man Goundar and mid-off before inducing an edge from Dad which set Russell to the top of the catching trophy charts. At 106-6 Crusaders were truly on the ropes.

At this point Russell suffered the sort of misfortune that no rookie captain should receive. Archie White had been bowling well for a man that shade of chunder-bucket green, but for the second time in a week turned his ankle in his delivery stride and had to retire from the attack. With Fryer and Hobbs both also, well, hobbling by this point, the skipper was forced to turn to the Secretary. Apparently the latter had not learned any new tricks overnight and his bowling disappeared to the boundary even more frequently than it had in the President’s Day game the day before.

On the other hand, it would’ve helped if Penn Street hadn’t dropped two catches in his first two overs as a plague of bad fielding suddenly overtook the team. It became impossible to count the number of chances that went down, but we know there were three or four off the Secretary’s bowling as he hasn’t stopped bleating about it since.

The breakthrough came from two unexpected sources. The batters had added precisely 100 to the total when the Crusaders skipper tried to take one run too many and Josh Tollerfield, who had been moved into the deep after proving that he was no better a slip fielder than anyone else on the team, rifled in a throw which left the batter well short. Almost immediately afterwards Sam Saunders finally picked up his first Penn Street wicket to get rid of the obdurate number eight batter – well deserved reward for a good, hostile spell of bowling.

By now Fryer had recovered from his various ailments just enough to return to the attack and it was he who polished off the tail, taking the last two wickets (which included another catch for Goundar).

Having prevented the opposition batting out their overs, Penn Street were very confident of chasing down 216 and keeping that winning run going. Early signs were promising, as Russell and Tollerfield set the innings off at a tremendous clip, taking the total to 70 in just eight overs.

At this point Chiltern Crusaders played a dastardly trick. They brought on a leg spinner. Almost immediately Russell patted a tame catch back to him. Then Tollerfield inside-edged on to his stumps. Rob Sutherland was unlucky to get a ball which hit the flap of his back pad and then fell agonisingly onto the stumps. Saunders somehow top-edged a shot to be caught at cow corner and then Ajith Pillai was bowled. Somehow 70-0 had become 79-5 in just six overs.

There was worse to come, because striding to the wicket at number seven in the batting order was the Secretary. It had every impression of being the biggest overpromotion since someone thought “I know, that Liz Truss would make a great Prime Minister”. As if Goundar hadn’t already done enough with three wickets and two catches, now Penn Street needed him to score around 75 runs whilst keeping the idiot at the other end away from the strike and praying for a lot of extras along the way.

Somehow, he did it. In one of the best innings that the village of Penn Street has seen for a long time he single-handedly pulled them back into the game with a combination of bludgeoning blows to the boundary and deft nudges to keep the strike. During his time at the crease the Secretary did not face a single ball from the leggie and Goundar’s 77 off just 53 balls was so nearly the difference between the two sides.

It took a piece of brilliance from that damn leg spinner again to get him out. A slightly miscued chip towards the vacant mid on area was falling easily to earth when Toby Slater spun in his follow-through, chased the ball towards the wood, flung himself forward at full length and somehow grabbed the catch an inch off the ground.

Somehow, the total had moved to 180. Even with Goundar gone, surely Penn Street couldn’t mess this up? Erm…

Hobbs and the Secretary added another 18 to the score and then the latter somehow got himself stumped whilst trying to nudge a single (he’s not been so keen to talk about that for some reason). Fryer then chipped a return catch in the same over. Barnett, after playing a couple of good shots, did the same at the other end to become the fourth caught and bowled dismissal of the innings. And then White, whose ankle was rendering him pretty much immobile when not in the vicinity of a bar, was bowled. Penn Street had lost their last four wickets for five runs and with it that unbeaten record.

PSCC: Chris Russell (c/wk), Josh Tollerfield, Rob Sutherland, Vishal Goundar (POTM by a country mile), Sam Saunders, Ajith Pillai, Richard O’Hagan (nosebleed from being too high up the order), Ben Hobbs, Jamie Fryer, Jonny Barnett, Archie White (limp)