Saturday 23 June 2018, Barnes Common.

Gentlemen of West London (108-6;  S Singh 2-14, V Seth 2-17, M Langridge 2-26) beat St Anne’s Allstars (106 all out; S Begley 25) by 4 wickets.

By Vivek Seth

The Gentlemen of West London (Gents) are long-standing opposition of the Allstars. A thoroughly nice bunch of guys who give us a competitive game, this fixture is always a highlight of the Allstars calendar. So once again, 11 of us looked forward to our encounter with the Gents on a sunny afternoon at Allstars HQ in Barnes.

After winning the toss, the Allstars looked very comfortable with the bat for the first few overs. Dave Halladay in particular hit a couple of glorious strokes towards the boundary. We then fell into a bit of bother, losing three wickets in quick succession: Pete Cresswell being particularly unlucky with a solid forward defence generating sufficient backspin to put the ball on his stumps. Simon “Scratch” Begley, who had played one of the great Allstars innings when we first beat the Gents in 2005, and Farhan Aslam put together a decent partnership and seemed to look comfortable. However, as with previous games this season, the story of the Allstars innings was getting in but then getting out soon after.  Scratch fell for 25, LBW to Kumar; Farhan to a spectacular instinctive catch by Hemin Patel.

Allstars batting at our spiritual home

Out came Joe Silmon and Sirmad Shafique who both looked like they would hang around for a while. Sirmad in particular, following on from his impressive debut against the Heartaches, helped accelerate our run rate with a couple of boundaries before he was caught of Hemin Patel.  Sachin Singh, making his first Allstars appearance of the season, also made an impressive cameo appearance, but was bowled by Buck after also looking well set. With the tail failing to meaningfully wag, the Allstars were bowled out for 106, 9 overs short of our allocated 35.

Allstars and Gents take tea – compliments to the chef!

After a splendid tea – a particular highlight being Pete’s chicken and sweetcorn sandwiches – we went out for a bowl, believing we still had an outside chance of winning the game.  Even when we’ve been bowled out cheaply against the Gents in the past, we’ve always fought like tigers and made them work for every run, and today was no exception.

Martyn Langridge and Haroon Khalid opened the bowling, providing a combination of pace and control. Wickets were hard to come by though and runs were coming freely, neither helped by the Allstars having an especially poor day in the field. Martyn eventually got the breakthrough by dismissing both openers, Buck being pinned LBW and Hemin Patel being caught by Scratch.  Martyn finished with an excellent spell of 2/26 from his 7 overs to give us a glimmer of hope.

It wouldn’t be Barnes without a delay to look for the ball …

Sachin then came on and immediately proved a real menace with the ball, stemming the flow of runs.  I replaced Martyn and got another double break, bowling both Chatharaju and keeper Krishna.  Sachin continued to bowl tightly and picked up two richly deserved wickets in his final over, bowling both Newcombe and our old friend Mark Sciberras, to end his spell with a superb 2/14 from his 7 overs. Having been 68/3, the Gents were now 95/6. Could we pull off a spectacular comeback?

Gents stalwarts Andy Burman, scoring, and Hemin Patel.

Despite the very best efforts of Joe Silmon and Haroon – both of whom were unlucky to finish wicketless – the final breakthroughs never did come. The Gents knocked off the remaining runs to win the game by 4 wickets and with ten overs to spare.

All agreed though that another 20-30 Allstars runs could have made things very interesting. Nevertheless, a very enjoyable day out in the sunshine with good food, good company from both teams, and some good beer in the Sun Inn afterwards.

Gents – a very happy 30^th anniversary and hopefully plenty more games between us to come in the next 30!

Our second fixture of the season, and always a favourite, took us to Oxfordshire to play Sir Tim Rice’s Heartaches. After a late change of ground to Chinnor (Aston Rowant being double booked), the Allstars batted first.

Openers Pete Cresswell and Dave Halladay began steadily, the grassy outfield slowing run scoring, before both were dismissed to spark an early collapse – skipper Paul Bowman and our Lord’s scoreboard star Umar Asghar also falling early to leave us on a perilous 9 for 4.

Joe Silmon and Sirmad Shafique mounted a spirited Allstars fightback. Sirmad, on his Allstars debut, took the attack to the opposition with some crunching drives, and Joe provided solid support and also began to find the boundary. Their dismissals brought together perhaps the Allstars’ oldest batting partnership – Tony Grant being joined by KP’s dad Derek, making a Father’s Day appearance while visiting from New Zealand – but the Heartaches bowling continued to send Allstars on their way. Even their 11 year old Jackson was a pretty handy bowler, finishing off the tail as we were bowled out for 64.

The Heartaches’ tea is always the best of the Allstars season, and was enjoyed as much as ever. We needed early wickets to give us a chance, and Haroon Khalid and KP both opened with excellent spells. But Heartaches’ opener Torquil Riley-Smith has been a tough opponent over many years – we’re still yet to dismiss him – and he began to find his touch with some thundering off drives. TG came on and struck with his second delivery, trapping AD Fox lbw – but we just didn’t have enough to defend as Heartaches eased home by 9 wickets.

Generous hosts as ever, and we’ll look forward to playing them again next season. We will get Torquil out one day…

Garreth Duncan

On Sunday, the Allstars season begun at what’s become our customary opening day fixture, against Valley End CC in Chobham. It’s a great venue for cricket and Valley End welcomed us as usual with some excellent tea. When we took the field, Martyn Langridge top scored for the Allstars.

Here’s some photos from the day – many thanks to Maxie for these!

Our preparation for the 2018 Allstars season is now firmly under way – with net sessions under our belts, we’re almost ready to go!

Our next net session will be this Saturday, at 5pm, and will also be at the Lord’s indoor school. We still have spaces available – if you’d like to join us, please get in touch with Haroon Khalid who’s organising this – or email our general email address stannesallstars@gmail.com.

This net session will be immediately followed by our pre-season get together, from 6.30pm onwards at the Duke of York, by St John’s Wood tube station. Everyone is welcome to come along, even if you can’t make the nets – would be great to see you all there!