One Day Competition - President Cardinals vs Sydenham Hospital, Sydenham Park #3, Presidents, 26th October 2013
There are some teams that you just love to beat not matter what, but our fellow club mates Hospital certainly aren't one of those, even when they're stronger than they are currently. This was an important match for us to maintain momentum and get some further time at the crease before the crunch matches coming up - for Hospital it was all about recovery and getting some confidence after being badly beaten the week before by BWU. Hospital won the toss and fortunately for us, having only needing to chase a modest 86 the previous week, inserted us on onto a dry hard looking Syd 3 track which looked the part but was probably a touch slower than it initially appeared. But the game from that point appeared only ever destined for an inevitable result as Hospital were never really able to assert any pressure on us at any point in the game from there on.
Laughts and Kev Moore, the latter making his debut for the season, got us off to a good start putting on 52 for the first wicket at a good clip before Laught's dismissal for 33. When Kev was dismissed for 19 shortly thereafter with the score at 61 perhaps Hospital had a chance to get back into the game, but Matty Loose was looking ominous. Despite being ever such a nice chap, it has to be said that Matt does possess a Viv Richard's type swagger when at the crease......a sense of disdain at nearly every ball bowled at him...a "does that white man really think that ball's going to trouble me, just as well I've set myself some targets this season and being patient...ok, now that's just insulting, go fetch this!". And fetch it Hospital did all too regularly with six 6's in his impressive 51 which, by the time of his dismissal to one that didn't bounce, had set us up to take the game at 132/3. Still, there was a bit of work to be done by the rest of the batsmen and it's always good when it comes from the Skipper. Ralphy's 45* was a timely confidence builder for the big games ahead, and whilst there was the occasional one, most of his runs encouraging came from shots other than his trade mark dab behind square.
The final score of 221/8 was always going to be a big ask for a weakened Hospital side, but in placing their top batsman at number six, almost signaled a surrender from the outset. Simply madness as Bernard is a man more than capable of getting a good start for his team mates, and who knows what can happen from there? So the Hospital innings was a bit of a procession after their other key bat in Jonny Smart was lost early when Jules had him comfortably caught at cover by Fergus for 6. All the bowlers again bowled well, but admittedly none of them were put under any great pressure at any stage of the innings. That lack of pressure enabled Flem in particular to dominant with his 4/11 off six overs the obvious best of the day. The catching was again good with Geoff's reflex one-handed catch near the end being the pick of them.
So a good win, and we wish Hospital all the best for the rest of the season, but we continue to look for a "Sam Martin worthy" competitor next week to really test out where we sit at this stage of the competition
Check out the scorecard from the game.