It was a long wait for cricket after a freezing winter and the time came to play. I had the opportunity to lead the Mitcham Second XI in 2017. Playing my first game on 6th of May, as Captain, made me nervous as I was playing with a totally new team from last year. But I like to face challenges and we have been blessed with new players like Jaimin for 2017. Our first game was against Whitley Village and the funny thing was I was stuck in the traffic so wasn’t able to do the toss, but our Vice Captain Jay Jones went for it and we were set to chase 256 in 45 overs. We managed to chase down this target very easily with Jaimin and Haris getting 50 plus scores.

After that game I thought - we can win this league if everyone plays like today. So we went on, step by step, winning our first nine games on the trot, putting us in great contention for the league.

In our next game against Godalming we had our first winning draw of the season, which stopped us winning 10 games in row. It was a very close game and we could have won with more neutral umpiring including a couple of dubious LBW decisions!

It didn’t stop us winning our next game and we were back with a bang, winning our next 3 games in row. 12 wins out of 13 plus a winning draw and we felt we had almost qualified for the trophy. But as the summer went on, we were short of players in mid-season due to players going on holiday, so had no choice but to look for new players.

Unfortunately, one guy who had netted with us over the winter and said he was available, failed to inform us he had played elsewhere during the season. The result was a 25-point fine. This left us needing to win each of our last 3 games.

We were good enough to win two of these, meaning the last game was like a cup final for the title against Thames Ditton the second-place side. We believed they needed to win with 20 points without us getting any points at all. And that we on the other hand only needed 4 points to win the league title. We made it hard on ourselves, at the start we lost 7 wickets with only 70 on the board, but Ahmed and Saj Ali put on 50 runs between them, which left Thames Ditton chasing 129 runs to win. We had very good start as Nimit took 3 early wickets and we were thinking we might able to get more, but Thames Ditton played well to get to 100 without losing any further wickets. Then there was a magical turn around in the 37th over as we took 3 quick wickets. Still we needed to take 1 more wicket to secure the bonus point, which would mean we would win the league. They were very close to our total and it seemed like we were not going to do it. However, luckily, or perhaps it was written, that last wicket was taken through a run out by myself and then we were told by the opposition players that we had won the league already as we had more wins in the season.

It was like a dream season for Mitcham as we were promoted as champions and are now going to play in the Surrey Championship after a long time away. It is a really great moment for me with the responsibility as captain and also for the team – that we could grab this opportunity. Thanks to everyone involved who made this such a great season on the pitch. Thanks also to Nora for the teas and to all our supporters for a wonderful season.

Bring on next season.

Shreyash Patel
2nd XI Captain