Timperley 3's XI Vs Wilmslow 2's XI

Report by Satyajit Velaskar

11th Sep, 21. Final match between TCC 3's and Wilmslow 2's - Home match. Start time - 12:30. Availability in general was up and down with the final test between India and Eng being called off. Anyway, looked like we had 11 players until a youngster decided he had enough after some brief introductions and left the ground with his mum…. 10 players it was then, until Sujith rocked up.. Players trickled in as usual, some clever ones got the timing right and reached the grounds when the boundary rope was sorted and covers moved to the side.. Vijay was last to arrive, unhappy that everyone had embarrassed him by turning up on time!!! Wot??

Vipul won the toss (usual) and TCC 3's were sent in to bat first. The batting line up was shuffled again and this time it was decided that Raghu and Vijay would open the batting. Not sure how Raghu manages to wangle his way in every time the batting order is moved around. Anyway, Raghu and Vijay took to the ground exchanging strategies in Tamil, which loosely translated into ‘we will win the match’ to the rest of us non-Tamilians. Wilmslow bowling was good in general- Amith and Faiz being the pick of the bowling attack with some great swing and fast bowling. Both Raghu and Vijay put up 87 odd runs (trying their level best to get out in the bargain). Raghu departed first at a score of 37 followed by Vijay soon after on 39. Amith accounted for both wickets for Wilmslow. Vipul went in at no. 3 and was joined soon after by Satyajit. Vipul, having started slow, then went on to score an explosive unbeaten 75 runs reaching his 50 with a ridiculous 6 over the square leg boundary. Satyajit scored 51 not out reaching his 50 with a boundary off the penultimate ball of the innings. A partnership of 129 for the 3rd wicket. The innings wound up at 216 in 40 overs for the loss of 2 wickets. The run rate remained at a steady 5 odd runs per over through the innings.

Quick lunch break and TCC 3rds took to the field; some powered by tobacco smoke and rest by lunch.

Swaraj and Raghu opened the bowling. Swaraj struck first bowling Tom with the score on 28 and then had Vignesh caught by Sujith with the score on circa 40. Raghu then had Saad caught well by Piyush at point for a duck ( He makes them look easy) with the score on 53. Looked like the game was in the bag for Tcc3s at that point. How wrong they were. Hurricane Elan was next in and blew the socks off the TCC3rds bowling. Elan struck hard and scored at will, peppering the surrounding golf course and house gardens with 5 huge sixes scoring a solid 78; scoring almost at circa 10 runs per over. Wilmslow were soon at 152 for 5 with about 18 overs remaining. Concerns for the run rate reached stratospheric heights at this point ( Well, atleast for Satyajit). Vijay then replaced Sourabh at the Stockport road end and struck at will accounting for the 5 remaining wickets and destroyed the Wilmslow batting backbone completely. Vijay was well supported by Vipul at the hockey ground end who ended up with 2 wickets.

Piyush scored well (in charge of the score book, I mean) but did not tally up the bowling figures for the TCC 3rds innings. He had one job… tut tut.

All in all a great win for TCC 3rds to end the season after a disastrous first half and winning 8 matches in the second half crawling back to fifth place in the league table.

The game was rounded off with a team picture, customary consumption of drinks, crisps and tobacco smoke thereafter, a reasonably subdued affair compared to the post match sessions in the past, raising our glasses to Jane, random exchanges of statistics, Gary and Phil getting lessons about Indian food and colourful language till our ears rang. We’ll do this again next year……

Winter well please until normal proceedings are resumed next season in 2022.