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Saturday Third X1 Match Reports
Normandy at home on Saturday 10th June– Surrey Championship Dulwich 182 all out (A.Saeed 78, A.Willis 33) in 55 overs Normandy 183 for 4 wickets 40.4 overs Result: Normandy won by 6 wickets On a blazing hot day at South Bank ground on Saturday afternoon, Jeff Mascarenhas lost the toss for the fourth time in five matches. With the temperature entering the thirties, with the outfield looking as if the ball would be passing across it rapidly, with the England football team engaging in their first World Cup group match against Paraguay in the early part of the game, and with the visitors looking travel weary after initially going to the wrong ground, the Dulwich team felt that there were worse tosses to lose! It was a tall opening Normandy attack, and between them they were extracting good lift from both ends despite the journey and the heat. The extra bounce certainly contributed to the first three wickets to fall. However, notwithstanding the opposition’s tight bowling and fielding, opener Amer Saeed remained at the crease, picking up singles when the opportunity arose, and hitting the bad ball to the boundary – including a glorious on-side six taken off their left arm change bowler. With the exception of some brief glimpses of quality from Paul Keymer in his 25 before he too succumbed, Saeed was offered little support until Adam Willis arrived at the crease at 115 for 8. Together, they lifted the scoring rate whilst adding 57 for the 8th wicket, both eventually departing towards the end of the innings - Saeed for 78 and Willis for 33. Dulwich were bowled out for 182 on the last delivery of the 55th over. Dulwich got off to a bright start with the old ball with a wicket each from David Begg and Keith Dawkins. However, last minute changes to the team meant that there was limited strength in depth to the bowling and once Normandy settled and the scoring rate increased, there weren’t as many options with the ball as there had been in previous weeks. Efforts to pressurise the batsmen were also compromised as catches were dropped. Adam Willis on at first change bowled well with little luck until he ran out of steam, and Neil Arendse’s burst with the new ball beat the bat on occasions, but equally the hard ball found itself racing through the outfield more than it had at any other point during the day. A direct hit run out from Dawkins provided a glimmer of hope with 20 overs to go, however, pursuing a target of less than five per over from this position with plenty of wickets in hand was not beyond the Normandy batsmen. For next week at Wimbledon, the Dulwich skipper is said to be considering slipping a double-headed 50 pence piece to his opposite number when they go out to throw the coin. This week, meanwhile, Dulwich were beaten by the better side. One gratifying outcome from Saturday, however, was that the same could fortunately be said of Paraguay.
Champagne moment: David Begg proudly wearing his Trinidad & Tobago football shirt amongst an array of England colours
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