Winning The Toss Leads To Solid Victory

Sunday 2nd XI vs Godalming

Having won the toss Putney and with a team of at least "eight" bowlers, Putney decided to play to their strengths and have a bowl first up. The opening Godalming batsmen were kept in check despite the very short boundary on one side by some steady bowling from Putney's opening combination of Henson (23/0) and Wilcock (32/0) who were both unlucky not to make early in roads. Having escaped an early walk back to the clubhouse both batsmen started to find more rhythm and worked the ball around well until Rowan Crooks made the much needed breakthrough.

The remaining opening batsmen responded to this and took advantage of the additional lives gifted to him in the field by posting a solid 50. Much to the surprise of Putney he then retired. Perhaps he had read the result last week and figured the Godalming total would be challenging enough for this Putney side or perhaps he had played too many shots to the long boundary and was fed up of running ones and twos for the effort he was putting in.

Either way this represented a turning point in the game as Putney's remaining bowlers, well supported by an inspired and much improved fielding display (Paul Hogarth leading by example with some excellent stops save for one dive which was no doubt for the paparazi), suffocated the scoring rate which became more reminscent of the boycott era rather than the modern day boom boom. Hutton produced a fine spell of in swing bowling without much luck, beating the batsmen on numerous occasions, and returning figures of 5-2-4-0. As a result Godalming only reached 141/5 in their alloted 40 overs.

Putney started the chase well with Lilja (28) and Crooks (13) making a good opening partnership and seeing off the main Godalming bowler without much trouble. Unfortunately our eagerness to finish off the chase and go for the big shot saw a number of batsment perish to some mediocre bowling which should not have caused us many problems. Not giving our wickets away cheaply is definitely something we need to work on for the remainder of the season together with playing ourselves in before attempting the big shots. Unlike other london clubs in different sports at the weekend we didn't throw away the result from a winning position and steadily knocked off the runs in quiet fashion until Raghu decided he had seen enough and dispatched three 4s in quick succesion in a rapid 23 not out to see Putney home. 142/7 off 32 overs - 1st win of the season for the Putney Sunday 2nd XI.

A solid victory and much improved on the prior week. We must have saved about 30+ runs in the field by getting our bodies behind the ball (or shins / ankles etc Raghu) and this proved crucial. If we can hold our catches in the coming games and keep this standard of fielding up we should do well. Anyone who can make it to nets on Thursday please do as there is a fielding session happening as well.

Rich Wilson

July 6, 2009