The Village (192 for 0) beat London Itinerants (191 for 9) by 10 wickets

Summary
London Itinerants won the toss and elected to bat
Conditions
Better than last time – shit on the bowlers’ run-up rather than the actual wicket. Groundsman’s grandfatherly arbitrary telling off alleviates the usual doom and gloom of resigned fate accompli - loss of toss. Klav brings his new bat again, just to not being able to use it again. JdM makes a return and Gilo evaporates that tubes don’t run like planes. Sweepstakes on Abs to bat
Wave of celebrations in Goa as two of its boys achieve a first for the Village CC in London

A huge wave of celebrations broke out in Goa, India after two of its boys completely annihilated their opponents London Itinerants to achieve a first in the Village CC history – a dominant 10 wicket win. Rumours are ripe that two brothers will replace the main cast on the Netflix cricket show ‘Selection Day’ in season 3.

The Villagers – despite the panic you saw on whatsapp, they got there all right.

Morgs’ black magic kit to win the toss still hadn’t arrived. Millions across India would have prayed for their favourite son to win the toss but they were busy spreading coronavirus in crowded areas, hoarding oxygen cylinders and black marketing essential medical supplies. Rest of them were praying for Sachin Tendulkar.

Village opened their bowling with Thomo(8-0-15-2) and Gilo(8-0-30-2) at either end and both kept things very tight in their first spells. Thomo drew first blood when he bowled their opening batsman Tom for 1. With most runs being scored behind the square, we thought we would get more scalps but the other opening batsman Achal and number 3 Ed buckled down to get through the opening spells.

Captain Morgans signalled changes at either end and brought Archit(8-1-30-1) to replace Thomo and EK(8-1-46-2) to replace Gilo. EK bowled decently at one end and got their opener and number 4 out but Archit’s first over nearly caused a mental breakdown for the entire team. Seemed he was upset with his demotion to being the first change and his reaction was to bowl a ball each to everyone’s GPS location from covers to fine leg but the stumps. If he was Steven Finn and we had Andy Flower, he may have become unbowlable/unselectable based on that one over. Credit to Morgs and the think tank for trusting him with another over and I am not sure anyone can explain what happened in that first over or the next 7 overs. Archit bowled brilliantly, made life difficult for batsmen and picked up a couple of wickets in the process.

Picher(4-0-32-0) contributed decently with the ball and was unlucky not to have got a wicket. Bosh(4-0-34-1) bravely bowled 4 extremely shit overs from the shitty run-up against very strong winds but managed to sneak out their number 3 Ed for 73. Thomo and Gilo came back to sneak a couple of wickets and the Village managed to restrict LI to a respectable 191/9 off their 40 overs.

The tea at Dulwich is always a compulsorily regimented and fancied affair. The buns were so crusty we needed a saw, block of cheese was a bit smaller, only one butter, one pickle, no coleslaw, less salad with no cherry tomatoes and blink it you miss it jam and cream on tiny breads. Apart from that, the tea was brilliant if you weren’t told off not to touch the tea kettle and we got a second serving at the end of play to quench our left over hunger from the tea.

The responsibility of starting the chase was entrusted with the two de Mellow brothers, whom the people of Goa call their own. History will support their claim. If we were watching this on TV, people would term it as a genius opening move. And when batsmen of this class get going, there is not a lot a bowling side can do. James(66 NO, 9 fours, 1 six) understandably started cautiously but his front foot stride got bigger with each ball. He went onto to complete his Fifty and remained unbeaten. The hallmark being a six which, at first glance, looked as if it was going to settle into the hands of mid-off but landed beyond the boundary.

Toby(109 NO, 12 Fours, 5 sixes) seemed to pick up from where he left off a couple of weeks ago. Both the brothers matched each other shot for shot, gap for gap, sweep for sweep and drive for drive. The fielding side ran out of ideas way before Toby pulled a hamstring. That led him to stand and deliver and there wasn’t a part of the field he didn’t hit the ball to. It wasn’t long before he raised his bat to the applause of Villagers (Pontin family included) upon completion of his second century in as many innings. The Village achieved their target of 192 in 27 overs and this was the first time the Village had completed a well deserved, dominant 10 wicket win.

Post match Sesh is where Dulwich makes it worthwhile – humans in multiple layers- like lots of layers; countless jugs bought until they decided they don’t like your face anymore, a kid mocking Bosh he needed a better football player to play against, golf chats, forensic examination of Village stats, Klav telling people he wanted to ‘grill’ them, missed catches and LBW’s, brothers who de Mellows can be compared to, how good Toby is, how good the partnership was, Grey Ham generally being unhappy with how the world is working and its citizens, Ollie’s century in the last game, Ollie’s six last game, the now the regular feature- Pitcher’s Pizza Party in the car park

Runs 4s 6s
J de Mellow † not out 66 9 1
T de Mellow not out 109 12 5
GC Pontin 0 0 0
A Abbas 0 0 0
OL Morgans * 0 0 0
(Frank) Extras 3b 2lb 6nb 0p 6w 17
Total for 0 192 (0 ovs)
Bowler O M R W
Ali 4 0 17 0
Dev 5 0 31 0
Fish 3 0 13 0
Niall 1 0 0 0
Nobby 5 0 31 0
Raif 3 0 32 0
Sazarthy 6 0 32 0
Fall of Wicket
No data recorded
London Itinerants Innings
Runs 4s 6s
Tom b N Price-Thompson 1 0 0
Achal b E Gupte 25 0 0
Ed c A Yadav b P Misra 73 0 0
Rahul c T de Mellow b E Gupte 12 0 0
Niall c N Price-Thompson b A Yadav 6 0 0
Ralph b G Tupper 25 0 0
Dev c C Pitcher b G Tupper 12 0 0
Nobby c N Price-Thompson b N Price-Thompson 7 0 0
Sarathy run out (OL Morgans) 3 0 0
Nick Fisher not out 0 0 0
Ali not out 0 0 0
(Frank) Extras 4b 3lb 2nb 0p 18w 27
Total for 9 191 (40 ovs)
Bowler O M R W
C Pitcher 4 0 32 0
E Gupte 8 1 46 2
G Tupper 8 0 30 2
N Price-Thompson 8 0 15 2
P Misra 4 0 34 1
A Yadav 8 1 30 1
Fall of Wicket
No data recorded