The away fixture to Ashford at Oak Hill is one of the joys of the summer season. Despite light drizzle on the M11, by the time we arrived the scene was set for a great day of cricket: overcast but pleasant conditions, on a pitch in perfect shape, and a lightning outfield. Spoiler Alert – this was a day for the Archives’ batting prowess to let rip.
Under Jamie’s thoughtful leadership we saw Will and Shailesh opening and start to flex the willow after a few tentative first overs. Given the 35 over format we had time to play a more subtle type of cricket, and one can only begin to imagine how an Archives team might fare in the 5-day Test match version of our beautiful game.
The beautiful game
Perhaps the only fly in the ointment at this stage of the game was Supreeth recording a rare duck to a fine ball from Ashford’s James. He would go on to cover himself in glory when bowling and fielding, and it’s a lesson that even Dalkey’s greatest players can’t always carry the team, but with the depth we now possess this isn’t an issue.
Our middle order was weaker with Aidan and Doug falling for small scores, but Richard knocking a handy 21. In reality though, we had kept some of our best until last, and the batting pairing of David and Rhamam provided the acceleration in our scoring rate that made the difference.
What they lacked in a willingness to bother to run between the wickets they made up for with aggressive big hitting strokes that reminded me of Botham in his prime. David put on another 40 max score and Rhamam ended 32 not out, with a total of four 6s and seven 4s between them. Jamie took a quick single in the last over and remained not out for the Archives to go into tea with a whopping 230 runs on the board.
Ravi stands...
...and delivers
Coming out to bat the Ashford team knew they had it up against them to reach their 231 target, pacy outfield notwithstanding. Openers Tony and Faiz put on a decent partnership with Faiz racing to retire on 35, notching up what I believe to be his 110th max score in Taverners cricket. Though slower scoring, Tony reached 24 before being bowled by Rhamam, with James’s wicket following shortly afterwards having being lured by Doug to a big hit that was brilliantly caught by Supreeth on the legside boundary.
As the Ashford run rate slowed there were various attempts to generate controversy and look for boundaries where both Will and Shailesh had put their bodies on the line to keep the ball within the rope. In truth it was clear Ashford were getting rattled, and even good middle order knocks from Francois (29) and Anil (17) weren’t moving quickly enough to save them.
Highlights as the shadows lengthened included Shailesh clean bowling Nick Seymour with a swinging delivery the Ashford captain sportingly described as the best he’d seen all season. Another great catch from Supreeth took out Dermot before he could really get motoring.
In the end even DC’s sledging couldn’t save Ashford, and tight bowling from Ravi, Will, Shailesh, Supreeth and Rahmam (all taking 5 overs) saw Ashford run out of overs and still several runs short.
In his gracious captain’s speech Jamie proffered our man of the match award to Faiz for his excellent batting and bowling performance. For Dalkey, the huge late innings knock from David was chosen for honours, although several of Dalkey’s warriors would have been worthy recipients.
A fantastic penultimate game of the season, with the Cavaliers to look forward to next Friday 13th (unlucky for some…but not for Dalkey!).
[Text - Doug Keatinge; Pics - Gareth Wyatt; Ravi Soni]
