SOUTHGATE 129 ALL OUT
INDIAN GYMKANA 113 ALL OUT
Having recovered from 44-6, and later 75-7, Southgate eventually won an unlikely victory at The Walker Ground on Saturday by just 16 runs.
The visitors’ excellent pair of opening bowlers Akbar (2-10) and Khullar (3-24) proved difficult adversaries for the home batsmen, and it was a surprise that Akbar did not complete his full nine overs.
Mikey Stevens smashed one ball hard to cover early on but each of the other first five wickets fell to excellent fast medium bowling by the pair.
Jamie Jouning joined Phil Dunnett (16) at the fall of the fifth wicket with the total at just 18, one of Southgate’s worst starts in the league on record. The pair added 26 before Phil was caught at mid-on. Jamie belied his recent poor form to score an elegant 28 before misjudging an arm ball from the Gymkhana off spinner. He and Jack Upton (45) added 31 for the sixth wicket and then Jack, as at Barnes the previous week, steered the tail to an eventual total of just 129, with the help of Woffinden (16).
On a perfect batting wicket that total seemed a total of little consequence.
However, Gymkhana started in identical fashion, with one batsman being caught at cover and the other given out lbw, and at 5-2, there appeared some hope for the home team.
David Woffinden, as ever, bowled tightly, conceding just 15 in his nine overs, and with Upton, similarly, bowling well (2-11 in 7 overs) Gymkhana’s Hussain (54 in 106 balls) and Zaki (6 in 50) started the road to recovery, but at a funereal pace. Ashley Sivarajah, returning home after two years at Ealing, bowled tightly, too, conceding just 17 in his nine overs.
With the score at 68 and tired of batting right-handed, Zaki elected to change to left-handed and at his first attempt reverse-swept the ball to Jamie Jouning, who held a sharp catch at slip.
Hussain increased his rate of scoring before being brilliantly caught by Dunnett down the leg side, standing up to Woffinden.
Gymkhana were now under pressure and who better to take advantage of that than Mikey Stevens (4-28) who makes some sort of contribution in most matches as the visitors collapsed to 113.
Young James Dangerfield finished off the innings with a double strike; a superb pick up and throw to effect a run out and a straight ball to bowl Gymkhana’s last man.
A splendid victory for Southgate which augurs well for this strange season, because if the batsmen can score a few more runs their bowling attack is the match of anyone in this division.
Peter Jouning