On a beautiful sunny day, at a lovely ground, Torrance House recorded their first win of the season. The skipper was away, so we hatched a plan to get a new skipper for the day. The plan fell into place naturally as Alan Miekle assumed the responsibility, and no one could really argue as he was the one with the match ball. His first decision was what to do on winning the toss, but this wasn’t too difficult because on days like these you bat first. He duly won the toss and we batted. It then got more complicated when he decided his batting order which had Aftab at 3. Only problem was Aftab was at a barbecue. He gave Gaurav a go instead. The skipper opened with Dr Raj, and Gaurav sat there willing his dad to get out, which he duly did, in the spirit of giving youth its chance. Gaurav looked the part, hitting a couple of cracking cover drives before he also departed, leaving us at 20 for 2.
Nick joined the skipper and duly rebuilt. They batted for 30 overs, serenely, without fuss, and the level of comfort provided allowed the conversation to flow on the side-lines, as Wilf got an education from Dr Raj and Ifty. As a flavour of the conversation try and work out how long it takes to empty a 70,000 tonne tanker of Palm Oil using 16 tonne trucks, whilst selecting one of a hundred different teas, in the governor of Bombay’s palace admiring the hand gun of his bodyguard.
The conversation was rudely interrupted when Dr Raj was asked to go out and umpire, which he did and exercised his power immediately by adjudging Nick LBW for 40. A good innings and Nick was just started to look in form.
Wilf joined the skipper, who soon followed Nick and departed for 30. With 9 overs remaining we were 118 for 4. Paul Edmond joined Wilf, and they proceeded at a run a ball to the end to take us to 175 for 4, with Wilf 43no and Paul 15no.
Not a bad score, as the Bothwell bowling was straight and tidy, but was it enough on a decent pitch with a fast outfield?
We needed to bowl well.
Calum got us off to a great start as he removed the Bothwell left handed opener with his 3rd ball, caught well by Imran at cover point. Calum proceeded to bowl his best spell of the season. At the other end the bowling machine was perfection. In total Nick bowled a full 15 overs, and finished with 5 wickets for very few. His nip backer to dismiss the Bothwell number 3 who got 50 was decisive.
Haris bowled 6 tidy overs, without luck, and Manchip bowled some off spin which yielded him 1 wicket for 20 runs in 7 overs. Ifty did his usual stuff, and dismissed the dangerous Bothwell number six, which was a big wicket as they were getting quite close. Calum came back to finish the game and did so with a big inswinger that knocked over middle and we had dismissed Bothwell for 153. A great performance in the field with everyone contributing something in the day to the win.
Wilf kept wicket for the full innings. One catch low down, and a stumping that was too quick for the umpire been the highlights. In reality the performance goes down in the category of stopper. Not quite yet a wicket keeper, and in the cold light of day, he will never make it into the realms of the artists.

Man of the Match - Nick Ralphs for 40 runs and 5 wickets.
Note for posterity – The 3 Byes in the scorebook were according to Wilf a leg bye and 2 wide’s.