Essex Cricket League Dukes League Cup Quarter Final, Sunday July 11th
I was over at Chalkwell Park for the second time in four days but this one was a biggie for the hosts as the Division Two side were hosting the mighty Premier Division Wanstead & Snaresbrook for a place in the final four of the League Cup, but the home side were clearly huge underdogs in this one.
Wanstead of course were the current Premier Division champions too and were hot favourites to get through as said above, and after they won the toss they elected to stick Westcliff into bat and hope to try and bowl them out cheaply.
The match was scheduled to begin at 12.30pm, but when I arrived their just before midday the home side had already faced 18 overs of their innings as I quickly found out the match had begun at 11am instead, but I had no idea this was the case, but hey ho there was still plenty of cricket to be played or I was hoping that was the case anyway.
Westcliff had just lost their first wicket before I arrived, Lewis Wright was snared by Wanstead skipper Joe Ellis-Grewal for 38 in an opening stand of 71 with Charlie Lockhart, and they quickly lost Jonathan Pratt for just two and Westcliff were 80/2 and I was thinking to myself that maybe I was a bad omen!!!
It had been a decent start for the home side though against a pretty decent bowling attack, and they quickly got over this double wicket wobble to find themselves on 137/2 with Lockhart and Joe Robbins going very nicely indeed, and a decent score looked likely for the hosts, however once Robbins was dismissed for 32, the hosts collapsed to 171 all out in the 42nd over, with the spin of Ellis-Grewal, Jahansher Akbar and Nabeel Aziz doing the damage.
Lockhart was top scorer for cliff making 56, but after such a good start they had lost their last eight wickets for 34 runs, an alarming collapse in anyone's book, and it meant Wanstead would only require 172 from their 45 overs to reach the Semi Finals of the competition.
The hosts needed early wickets if they were to pull of one of the biggest shocks for sometime, and Adnan Khan, who had been given out LBW at the end of the Westcliff innings in rather controversial circumstances, charged in with the new ball and skittled Kishen Velani's off stump with a beauty to see the visitors 10/1, but thereafter Bilal Patel and Robin Das set about batting the visitors into a commanding position.
The pair put on a class 77 for the second wicket before Patel was snared by spinner Adil Ali, having the batsmen well caught at slip by Tom Baker, Ali was probably the hosts best bowler as he caused them problems, especially Adnan Akram, who he had tied up in knots on more than one occasion, and Akram was his second victim, caught by Lewis Grove for 16 and leaving the visitors on 120/3.
But despite this Wanstead had no real alarms as they cruised home to win by seven wickets with just under fifteen overs to spare, and Robin Das ended up unbeaten on 80 off just 68 balls, a real class knock indeed and it helped his side to what was a comfortable win in the end.
Fair play to Westcliff though who certainly gave their opponents a decent game, but that batting collapse was the undoing for them and they just never had enough runs to defend, but a really good run in this competition must be applauded and they can now concentrate on trying to win promotion to Division One.
For full scorecards and bowling figures of this game click here https://essexcl.play-cricket.com/website/results/4898695
Here are some photos I took of the contest too...
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