Page 55 - OM Newsletter - Issue 43 - 2020

OM SPORT
Repton, however, had six players with first-class experience five of whom were batsmen. This would be a challenge for a young Malvern side who were without their opening attack. The five batsmen played with a mixture of aggression and solid technique but the bowlers held their line and length and appeared to hold the upper hand at 190 for 4. In came Eldred who had not played in the previous rounds and took charge with a well struck 69. Borrington was well caught by Lea on the boundary for 110 as the fielders coped with the mounting pressure. At 292 for 6 with four overs to go and one short boundary the game was in the balance. Malik, the sixth bowler, who had been held back produced a match-winning 5 for 57 and was ably supported by the other bowlers who all chipped in to reduce Repton to 308 after 48.5 overs. Mention must be made of the stumping of Eldred by Alex Milton which would have been worthy of the stage at Lord’s.
A great all-round performance took the team back to Malvern on July 28 for the semi- final against Oundle Rovers. The toss was always going to be extremely important and, regrettably, for the first time this season, Josh Haynes, failed to win it. The toss was so important because the wicket was so dry and as the day wore on the spinners would get great assistance from the wicket and so it proved. Obviously with our four excellent spinners we would have been in the driving seat had we batted first, and defending a decent score of over 230/250 would have been relatively comfortable. However it was not to
be and it was Oundle who batted first and built the score to defend on the increasingly turning wicket. Oundle attacked from the off and were 60-0 after just nine overs before two quick wickets slowed matters down. Oundle re-built the innings with a new partnership of 90 to put them in a strong position where at 160- 2 after 30 overs we were fearing a big score in the region of 270/300. Fortunately wickets started to fall to our spinners, a couple of run- outs and finally the score reached 249 in the 50th over; a good score, not unreachable, but it would require one of our top four or five players to get a big score, preferably a 100 but certainly in the 70/80 range.
Oundle realising the rapidly-changing wicket opened the bowling with two spinners and throughout our innings they only bowled spinners. Zen Malik opened with Odge Davey; at the end of two overs Davey was 20 not out and Malik 5. Zen was very unlucky when bowled by a long hop which never bounced and hit the bottom of the stumps! In truth our top-line batsmen didn’t play as well as we all know they can, getting out to poor shots in some cases. We continued to lose wickets on aregularbasisandonlyBenTeggwithawell- played 36 and Liam Smith with 25 showed what was possible. The Oundle bowling was steady but certainly not of real quality but we combined with the wicket to make them good enough and we ended up all out and 78 short of the target. Of course it was disappointing but it should be recognised we have an outstanding team of young cricketers who are all passionate about playing for Malvern. All
these young players with an average age of just over 20 have made themselves available to play every match, performed brilliantly with great team spirit and will be a major part of Malvern cricket for years to come augmented by some young talented cricketers currently at Malvern and set to join the OMCC.
Thank all the members of the Patrons Club for your interest and support of Malvern cricket.
Bryan Richardson
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