1st XI Match Report - Beckenham v Sandwich Town (League)

After the rain the previous day, Saturday brushed up sunny and warm for the visit of current League leaders Sandwich Town.  A cursory glance at the day’s wicket by the Beckenham scorer on his way back from the scorebox revealed that a little moisture had crept under the covers.  Visiting skipper Matt Van Poppel thought the same as he gleefully sent Beckenham into bat having won the toss.  Finding himself the sole scorer for the day due to the vagaries of the regulations decreeing that away teams were not obliged to send a scorer, he took up his lonely vigil and awaited the opening salvoes.

And when they came, they couldn’t have signalled a worse start for Beckenham.  Facing the lively visiting attack, first Finn Bryan was caught in no man’s land to a ball that kept a little low and had a stump plucked out by Alex Smith.  In the next over, Nick Rigg was bang in front to Liam Evans and the score was a miserable 3-2.  It was fairly obvious that runs would need to be earned as the ball was keeping a little low, the square still not fully dried out from the wet May.  Skipper Alex Senn, showing little sign of his shoulder injury and subsequent operation, began to anchor the innings and received fine support from the classy James Fear.  It was not easy with the Sandwich fielding of a very high standard allied to the persistency of their bowlers.  The fifty partnership came up in just over the hour and signs were that the tide was turning.  Having made several bowling changes, Van Poppel brought himself on and immediately struck gold when Senn holed out for a solid 36.  Fear carried on and reached an excellent fifty in 85 deliveries before sadly offering a catch to Zack Fagg off Rory Smith for 62.  Worse was to come as Rithik Hari was nailed in front first ball to leave Beckenham on 129-5 in the 38th over.  Fortunately, the experienced combination of Johan Malcolm and Jahid Ahmed took charge and pushed the score along to 160 before Van Poppel struck again to dismiss Malcolm for 35.  As the overs ticked away, Ahmed holed out to Fagg at 176 from the penultimate ball and, with debutant keeper Will Hanson, deputising for the injured James Balmforth, run out off the last ball, Beckenham closed on 176-8.  It had been an excellent performance from Sandwich Town in the field and it would require something similar from Beckenham in reply.

Right from the start it was plain to see that runs would still have to be earned and the bustling Alex Purwar, restored to the side, trapped the dangerous Zack Fagg in front from his second ball.  He added to that at 25 when Robbie Goatham edged to a jubilant Will Hanson.  The recovery was then led by Joe Gordon who was beginning to play his shots in partnership with Tom Chapman as Senn paired the left-arm spinners Rob Clements with the precocious Ishan Sabharwal who impressed against Blackheath and impressed again as he removed the Sandwich pair within the space of two overs.  Alex Smith, who was off the mark with a six and was anchoring the middle order, then pushed the score up past the hundred before Sabharwal struck again to dismiss Rory Smith for 27 in the 38th over and suddenly Beckenham were right back in the game, Senn exhorting his troops to a greater effort.  Bren Chapman helped Smith to eke out a further 36 precious runs before Fear took a splendid catch at long off from Johan Malcolm and then Smith was run out for a battling 41 to bring the match to boiling point with two overs to go and the score 168-7.  Malcolm then hung onto a splendid return catch in the penultimate over and hand the unenviable task of trying to limit the final over to less than two runs to Alex Purwar.  A dot ball before Liam Evans deposited the second ball over the ropes to end a magnificent game of cricket that left Beckenham wondering about the outcome had they managed 20 more runs.  One thing is for certain, if Sandwich Town do go on to win the Premier, and there is a lot of cricket still to be played, this splendid cricket club will be a shining example of the values in producing high-quality home-grown players and not go down the totally reprehensible route of paying players in the hope of buying success.  The performance by Beckenham had been exemplary with Ishan Sabharwal impressing hugely with 3-30, Purwar with 2-32 and Malcolm 2-35 backed up by excellent fielding.

Scorecard: https://kcl.play-cricket.com/website/results/4146906 (external site)