Well, that was a bit better – three wins and one narrow defeat, that’s a lot more like it. However, the fantastic results does not hide the fact that selection for week 2 was a nightmare for the hard-working captains. At 9pm on Monday evening all teams had been selected, and selection was wrapped up. We even had a 5XI fixture, we had that many players. But that’s when it all started going Pete Tong. Dropouts, illness, school revision, and family parties are just a few of the reasons the teams started to change. My review of the weekend was written and ripped up three times, I didn’t know who to pick as my Player to Watch just in case they dropped out. Still, our skippers and vice skippers managed to do it, and 5 teams were fielded. Let’s hope we don’t go through that again.
Anyway, onto the action and what a magnificent day for the 1XI as they announced themselves in division 2 with a 2 wicket win away to Woodford Wells. Rama Bashamoni became the first player in SLHCC history to take five wickets in a league game with a pink ball. He was backed up by batters Rob Page, Martin Leslie, Jack Scutt and then the ice cool Joe Robertson who steered the team home. The first of hopefully a few W’s on the board.
The 2XI also bounced back in fine style winning by 3 wickets against South Woodford. Skipper Darryl Woodford (no relation) had the incredible figures of 3-10 and was backed up by Dave De Jong’s 3-52 to give a relatively modest total to chase. Drew Robinson with 42 and Freddie Hales 29 were the main men in getting the team over the line with almost 5 overs to spare. The returning Kevin Smith smashed a 6 into the car park to win the game.
The 3XI had a bit of Groundhog Day losing in the last over for the second week running. Despite top performances from Sam Stannard and Freddie Robinson with the ball and then Sas Muthuraaman and Ravi Sandaname with the bat, they fell agonisingly short yet again. The effort is there and will surely be rewarded soon.
The 4XI had a fairly comfortable win at home to Old Souths. The wickets were shared amongst the youngsters in Tharun Shanmuganand, Connor Fillsell and James McCartney, whilst the experience in Geoff Lake and S. Shanumuganand both scored fifties to see the team home with 14 overs to spare.
The Fantasy League has started to hot up, whoever got their picks right this week, well done, because no one in the club knew the final teams until 12.30pm on Saturday. The manager of the week award went to Tharun with an incredible score of 964 points. The next best score was 801 from Will Robertson who was marking his first week in the league, so a great effort.
The league positions changed around a bit with Dan Copp eventually sitting top of the pile after week 2 with a total score of 1,406. There is still a long way to go but don’t forget we are paying cash for the manager with the most points each month.
There was only one person that could be the fantasy player of the week and that was Rama with his magnificent bowling performance in the 1XI. Will he make your team next week?
Ok, that’s The Scout’s review of week 2 done, I’ll be back on Friday when hopefully team selection has been a little bit easier for our hard worked captains.
