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Saturday Third X1 Match Reports
Leatherhead & Cobham away on 18th August 2007 in the Surrey Championship
Leatherhead & Cobham 38 all out in 24.2 overs (B. Casson 5-22, D. Biswas 4-11) Dulwich 39-3 in 9.1 overs Result: - Dulwich win – 13 points Wimbledon have ‘daddied’ the Surrey Championship 3rd XI Premier Division from the off this year, and Dulwich had been painfully reminded of the pecking order with a sound beating last week. Given the way Dulwich had got used to winning games against quality opposition like Reigate and Normandy, that defeat guaranteed that someone else was going to be made to suffer. Leatherhead and Cobham, were second from bottom, but had beaten the Dogs in the first fixture on their own turf, and so stand-in skipper Stephen Heath called for a ‘prison-style’ degradation of the opposition. Dulwich won the toss on a wicket that was predictably a touch damp and slow, and there was no hesitation in allowing the best seam attack in the league to make first use of it. Opening bowlers Deb Biswas and Brett Casson settled into their line and length straight away, giving practically nothing away for the first 13 or so overs. No wickets fell during that time but with the field supporting the bowlers the run rate was kept to around 1 an over. Deb was Legend-like in his metronomic accuracy, shaping his stock ball away from the right-handers and fooling them time and again with his well-disguised in-duckers, while Brett slanted or cut the ball across them, and somehow managed to extract some pace and bounce which they couldn’t handle. Enormous pressure was building up and it was a matter of time before it told. The breakthrough was finally made by Brett who induced the inevitable nick that ‘keeper Sammy Taylor gratefully pouched. Deb got in on the act twice in the next over with the score still on 13, thanks to a smartly taken slip catch and an easy LBW decision. Dulwich were in the midst of a purple patch where they could do virtually no wrong: the fielding was tight, the catching in particular being of the highest quality with 2 sharp one-handed catches being taken in the slips, and the bowling was superb. Having built up the pressure there was no relenting and Dallas and Croissant ran through a stunned Leatherhead & Cobham for 38 with Brett taking 5-22 off 12.1 overs and Deb 4-11 off 12, with a run-out denying him the 5-for he so richly deserved. With the Legend not required to bowl, the captain felt like he had a vintage Aston Martin that he didn’t even take out of the garage. The scoreline might suggest a pitch full of demons, but that was not the case. It was a regulation slow damp wicket with a hint of green about it, i.e. the sort played on by club cricketers around the country week-in week-out. But it did not misbehave; L & C’s score was the direct result of quite simply outstanding performances by the 2 opening bowlers backed up by keen fielding and excellent catching. The runs were knocked off pretty promptly – the clouds threatened rain and so quick runs were the order of the day and this accounted for the 3 wickets lost. Winning by 7 wickets doesn’t quite reflect the brutality of the victory. Prior to the game the captain had called for the Dogs to play their cricket ‘prison-style’, and, as the erudite Sammy Taylor commented afterwards, this was the performance that defined the term.
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