5s seal immediate return to Division 4

Report by Alex Thomas

The 5s sealed promotion with a convincing performance against Kensington & Chelsea 3s. Some quirks in the fixture list and Charles’ academic commitments meant that this was the first away match he was captaining in since 13th May. A lot has happened in that intervening period. Theresa May blew her parliamentary majority, Diego Costa lifted the Premier League trophy, Pakistan won the Champions trophy, Diego Costa was exiled to Brazil and most importantly of all, the 5s only lost once. That run of results gave us an excellent chance of getting promoted. Charles chose this opportune moment to win a toss and inserted the opposition on a green, fresh-looking deck. Joe Bangerter opened and hit his usual tight lines and lengths. Alex Thomas, who opened from the other end, had a slightly more erratic start. His first ball slipped down the leg side. This was followed by a full toss which their opener bunted to cover. He then overcorrected with two half-trackers which deceived their batsman with their (lack of) pace from the pitch (or bowler?). The over finished with another full toss and, to everyone’s surprise, a good length ball outside off stump. The net result: a maiden. We kept a lid on the scoring rate from then on and Joe made the first incision, with Ishan taking a good catch a square leg. Spin was quickly introduced into the attack with Dykey and Zak bowling in tandem. Wickets began to tumble as Dykey bowled their no. 3 and Zak took a great catch of his own full toss. Joe Bangerter also held a good catch in the deep after Charles had set the trap for their no.4. At this point one something quite bizarre happened. Or rather, a bizarre series of events took place. 1) Zak bowled an off break 2) The ball bounced. 2.5) The ball bounced again 3) Their batsmen, who was preparing a sweep shot decided to change it to a reverse sweep. 4) He edged his sweep. 5) Alban took the catch. 6) We appealed (a bizarre move, in hindsight) 7) Their umpire gave it out. This was followed by a small conference between the sides to discuss what exactly had happened. A ‘not out’ verdict was reached with the score now at 50-5. Their lower order then played with a bit more sensibility to take them towards a defendable score. Charles, Alex Croft and Joe’s second spell eventually accounted for the tail. Our target was 116 after bowling them out inside 43 overs. What could’ve been a tricky chase on a slow outfield against a spinner who claimed to have taken ’20 wickets in the last few weeks’ actually proved to be quite straightforward. Tim was out lbw for 12 after missing a straight one but Alban and Zak built a steady partnership in response. Alban was eventually dismissed for a watchful 31 but Zak carried on with inventive sweep shots and delicate glances to third man. He finished on 52* along with Ishan who got some good red ink (7*). A professional chase, following up a great team bowling performance (Dykey 3-27, Joe B 2-11, Zak 2-16, Charles 2-19 Alex Croft 1-24) gave us the 10 points we needed to gain promotion. The 5s have done brilliantly to be so consistent in such a stop-start league and 9 wins out of 11 is an excellent return. Let’s make it a perfect 10 against North London in two weeks’ time!