Dulwich Sports Ground, Sunday 3 May 2026.

Mandarins 113-2 (22.4 overs, Jules Lowin 50 ret) beat St Anne’s Allstars 112 all out (31.5 overs, Gren Thompson 40, Anindya Roy 30) by 8 wickets.

Scorecard

Allstars Debuts: Mikaiil (Mak) Nuur, Ross Blackmore.

Report by Gren Thompson- Photos by Jimmy Scott and Gren Thompson

On an unexpectedly sunny Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon in Dulwich, the Allstars raised the curtain on their 2026 season. Based on how things began, one can only assume that the Allstars spent most of the winter walking under countless ladders, opening several umbrellas indoors, and spilling salt by the skip load.

After Mandarins won the toss and put the Allstars into bat, the 2026 season began with Allstars stalwarts Matt Biss and Samer Hafiz striding out to the wicket. It took only two balls for the misfortune to strike. An easy single to mid-off saw Matt jog through to the non-striker’s end. At that point, time and space conspired against the Allstars. The innocuous looking return throw back to the bowler collided flush with Matt’s face and, two balls into the new season, the Allstars were a man down with concussion-like symptoms. Only two balls later, Mandarins’ skilful opening bowler, Rob Eastaway, found a perfect length and late movement to nick-off Samer without troubling the scorers. One over, one injury, one wicket and only one run.

The new batters at the wicket, Richard Slatford and debutant Ross Blackmore, looked comfortable and navigated the next few overs without alarm. However, Mandarins struck twice in the 5th over. First, Ross mis-timed a drive and looped a catch to point. Slats was then run out by a direct hit from the Mandarins’ wicketkeeper Jules Lowin who expertly splattered the stumps from short fine leg.

Barathwaj Nagarajan and Anindya Roy steadied the Allstars innings with some fine strokes to put on a stand of 29 for the 4th wicket. However, again, a flurry of quick wickets pegged back the Allstars batters. Saad Hasan, bowling with good pace, sent two Allstars packing. Barathwaj edged a good delivery to slip and Ben Hampton got an unlucky grubber that snook below his defences and into the base of the stumps. From the other end, Harry Wigram clean bowled Allstars’ second debutant Mak Nuur, to make it 48-6. 

Skipper Gren Thompson joined Roy at the wicket, and together they attempted to push the Allstars score towards respectability with continued attacking intent. Roy was starting to look set for a big score before he missed a full, straight delivery from Nikhil Gidwani and was dispatched leg before wicket for a fine 30. With the Allstars languishing on 75-7, Matt attempted to return to the middle – but was still feeling the affects of his early incident and soon nicked a good ball from Abhijit Nair to slip.

That left Iain Wilson and Gren to counter-attack, and a series of firm shots and proactive running between the wickets brought up the Allstars’ 100. Yet, not long after the three figures were registered, Gren fell to a well held catch at extra cover, ending up with 40 off 36 balls. The ever-sprightly Jimmy Scott joined Iain for the last wicket – but another piece of excellent Mandarins fielding saw Iain run out for 6 and the Allstars innings closed on 112 all out.

In the second innings of the match, an excellent opening spell from Ben Hampton gave the Allstars brief hope of making a competitive game of things. Ben trapped Mandarins’ opening batter, Tim Baxter, lbw in the 4th over to put the hosts 7-1. However, the Mandarins’ top order proved too resilient and too composed for the Allstars attack and cantered towards victory while offering few chances to the bowlers. Late in the day Barathwaj found enough turn to trouble the batters and deservedly bagged a wicket when he bowled Mandarins’ other opener, Wahaj Siddiqui, for 36. A close to flawless 50 from Mandarins’ Lowin guided the hosts to an 8 wicket victory that rarely looked in doubt. 

In the spirit of an early 90s pop classic, things can only get better for the Allstars this season. Hopefully next week’s trip to Valley End will bring better luck and the first Allstars victory of 2026.