Sonning Innings

for ( Overs)

Batsmen		Runs	Balls	4s	6s	SR
Matthew Calhoum	Out	0
Charles Astwood	Out	3
David Gillard	Out	10
Toby Fitton	Out	5
Jacob Fitton	Out	0
Venu Pasikanti	Out	16
Kalhan Shah	Out	14
Kabir Dave	Out	19
Isaac Blakey	Out	4
Avi Ansh Pasikanti	Out	35
Extras

Bowling	Overs	Maidens	Runs	Wickets	Economy
Charles Astwood	1.0	0	12	0	12.00
Jacob Fitton	8.0	0	52	0	6.50
Venu Pasikanti	3.0	0	12	1	4.00
Kalhan Shah	7.0	0	61	0	8.71
Kabir Dave	8.0	0	28	1	3.50
Isaac Blakey	8.0	0	55	1	6.88
Avi Ansh Pasikanti	5.0	0	30	0	6.00
Extras

Fielder	Catches	Run Outs	Stumpings
Matthew Calhoum	1	0	0
Jacob Fitton	1	0	0

Match Report

A little ground living in the shadow of their grandiose neighbour Marlow CC emergency repairs needed to be performed on the sightscreen due to enthusiastic overnight damage from the local youths. Astwood in his captaincy debut after last weeks cancelled game lost his first toss and Sonning were invited to field first.

Not sure the captain really told the truth when he was asked if they had a strong team out claiming it was “OK but not great”, the truth came out later that they had 4 Saturday firsts playing for them.

Shah and Blakey opened the bowling finding a good length and some movement for Shah but without luck as Stephens, their strong opening batsman found the middle of the bat and moved the score along at a frightening brisk 8 runs an over. Anything in the air was landing safely and we were quickly looking at the end of a large score. At about 30 runs for Stephens the opposition burst into applause, they explained that it was his 1000 run this season, some feat as he had been injured for five weeks of it too.

J Fitton and Dave came on next, with Dave bowling an excellent spell with great control calming the run rate down and Fitton exceptionally unlucky with the batsman riding their luck at times. Stephens got to 63 before Calhoum took a catch off a beautiful piece of bowling from Dave.

With Barlow retiring on 58 A Pasikanti showed us how it should be down with a great five over spell going for just 30 runs and should have had a wicket or two. Blakey came back from the other end after an over from Astwood that we shall never speak of again, admittedly he was suffering from an ankle problem caused by his usual stick anything in front of the ball to stop it, early in the Marlow’s innings.

With A Pasikanti not able to bowl more than 5 overs due to some colts rule his father V Pasikanti took over and bowled the best spell of the day taking the wicket of Bradley clean bowling him, while Hawkins went on to hit 69 not out. Blakey taking a deserved wicket with J Fitton taking a good high catch to remove Chahal for 1.

J Fitton and Shah coming back to finish their overs were again unlucky as the swinging bat of the opposition found the gaps and the boundary and set Sonning a mammoth 256 for victory in their 40 overs.

Tea was slightly disappointing with store bought sandwiches of the too soggy variety and a small selection of cake. Nothing has really beaten the Hartley Wintney BBQ so far this year.

The Sonning innings started with Calhoum and Astwood taking their preferred opening slots. Chahal bowling with decent pace and a lot of movement in both the air and off the seam beating the bat. Ambrose from the other end was getting a lot of movement as well, and quickly made the breakthrough bowling Calhoum for a duck bringing Gillard to the crease.

Astwood followed back into the pavillion in the next over trying to work the ball to leg and falling fowl to a huge amount of swing as it caught his leading edge and popped up beautifully for 3rd slip. 5/2 quickly turned into 12/3 as Gillard gave up a catch off Ambrose. The Fitton brothers were both now at the crease and needed to go big for any chance of Sonning to get near to the winning total, however Isaac “The Trigger” Blakey gave J Fitton out LBW that will be debated long into the night at the local ‘Spoons. T Fitton soon followed popping up a catch to the bowler to leave Sonning 24/5 in the sixth over.

However lower order resistance came in the form of V Pasikanti showing us how it should be done hitting four fours aided by Shah. After Pasikanti was bowled by Ambrose and Shah unfortunately caught in the deep off a rank ball from Fay Dave and Blakey were batting for the pride of Sonning 2nds. After a beautiful off drive four to avoid another notch on the quackers board Blakey was bowled playing what can only be described as a questionable shot. Enter our little magician A Pasikanti. Batting with Dave and showing beautiful technique they pushed on the score to 62 before Dave was bowled in the 18th over by Fry after he had helped himself to what can only be described as buffet bowling form the young girl Goosan. However the opposition offered us a last man standing situation and A Pasikanti was only too happy to accept. Playing some fluent strokes he punished all that came on to try and dismiss him on his way to a fantastic 35 pushing Dave to run a huge amount of twos. Giving him two more overs to bat he took on their opening bowlers and very kindly on the last ball of the game allowed himself to be bowled to give Ambrose five wickets and another jug after the match to be bought.

Playing a team that was very much better than us we showed great credit in not letting our heads drop and it was an enjoyable day in the sun. If we continue to bowl as we did today we will get a lot of teams out for a lot less runs, we were unfortunate that the ones that went in the air didn’t go to hand, on another day we would snaffle them up and it would be a totally different game. And many thanks for not giving me too much grief on first day of captaincy, things as they say can only get better.

Man of the match: V Pasikanti (obviously) Ball of the day: Dave’s beautifully flighted ball caught by Calhoum Shot of the day: Any of Pasikanti’s Catch of the day: J Fitton