Medicine CC vs Holton & Wheatley
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Played at Great Haseley
Original Report by MaheshPoolakkaparambil
Holton win first Twenty20 Encounter.
It was a wonderful evening at Great Haseley where Holton played their first T-20 match of the season (the first for about 10 years in fact) against Medcine CC. Though it was a sudden change in the format of the game, Holton proved to be flexible and brilliant enough to adapt quickly to the T-20 format.
Tim Littlewood (23) gets Holton off to brisk start
The original Sunday game against Great Haseley, exactly a month earlier, was cancelled due to rain. Hence a rearranged fixture was arranged through their fixture secretary, Chris Groves, however as Chris is a medic at Oxford Brookes, we found ourselves playing against his colleagues in the form of Medicine CC.
In bright sunshine, Alan Banyard’s debut as captain started by losing the toss. Holton batted first with Tim Littlewood and Mahesh Poolakkaparabil opening the innings. Tim started Holton’s batting attack giving a hint to the opposition about the run feast Holton focusing for. On the other side Mahesh kept silent and played a supporting role with fellow batsman. Holton was cruising with a run rate of nearly 8 when Mahesh joined the party with a brisk boundary. By the time Holton lost Tim (28/1), he had already put Holton right on the track with few splendid knocks. Guy Buford joined Mahesh hoping to keep the run rate steady and growing. Before Holton’s big hitter could do anything, Medicine struck again by sending him for a duck (35/2). Binoy was the next batsman to join Mahesh and both Indians boosted the scoring rate hence the game towards Holton’s favour. Vikram came into bowling attack for Medicine and conceded the most expensive over after being hit for 17 runs. Soon Binoy departed as Nick hit the timber with a good ball. Mark Deacon and Kiran took over from there and put Holton in a commanding position. Kiran added 15 runs in no time with two huge sixes and Mark just back from injury hit a big six as well. Graham Hawkins and both Kelly’s added valuable 20 plus runs to Holton innings. Along with few extras and marvellous batting display from Holton batsmen, the final score reached 135 /7 in 20 overs.
Mahesh (29) pulls one to fine leg
Binoy eyes up a bouncer
Kiran backing up
Mark Deacon plays a straight bat
Kiran pull one for six!
Mark pull a six soon after!
Graham Hawkins (1 for 8) looks on as Kiran is about to be stumped off this one
Medicine CC started their reply soon after Holton’s innings. Holton was so deterministic and knew exactly what to do. Kiran started the bowling attack. But it was John Kelly who exhibited the man of match performance with the ball for Holton. Before the score reached double figures, 4 of the Medicine batsmen were back in the dug out. John Kelly ripped through the Medicine top order. At one point the match looked purely one sided. But S Twigg and J Beay fearlessly faced the Holton bowling attack and kept the Medicine batting reply stable and ticking. But the required run rate mounted enormously as Guy Buford, Graham Hawkins and and Binoy gave brave support to Kelly and Kiran. Alan then brought Mark Kelly and himself into the bowling attack. Both set batsman Twigg and Beay decide to go for their chance and started attacking slowly. Mahesh joined the party with the ball, expecting to shine in the bowling as well. But Medicine hit hard and gained 23 runs out of his 2 overs keeping their hope alive. Twigg and Beay had to get back to the pavilion once they had reached 30 according to the rule set before the game. This affected Medicine’s batting and John came back to attack and tied the oppositions batsmen from going for big hits. Hoton’s display on field was much better and hardly gave away any extra runs. Though Haseley’s star batsmen returned, the run rate raised much beyond that they could do something. G Haseley’s reply ended for 118/8 leaving Holton victorious by 17 runs.
