A Philanderers’ midweek XI, that featured surprisingly few crusties, gathered at Fitzwilliam to take on the Remnants for the second time this season. Having suffered a shock defeat to Camden as the light faded the week before the team was to take some of the England ODI side’s aggressive cricketing mindset into this long running fixture.
Captain Pimblett got off to a much better start than CKD had the previous week by winning the toss and electing to bat on what looked a good batting track. The mainstay of The Philanderers innings was Tom Picton-Turbevill who carried his bat for 92 including an audacious reverse sweep for six over point, which failed to impress Mel Ragnauth (who contributed with a classy 27 off 13 balls) leading to the comment “a reverse sweep can at best be described as a decent shot”.
P-T could have had a chance at getting a century if it weren’t for George Hall hogging the strike as he tried to reach a fifty of his own, falling short with a quickfire 41 not out (although he did continue his Philanderers tradition of hitting a huge six over cow corner which this time ended up in someone’s back garden). Hall showed the class of his batting technique when the opening bowler returned in the penultimate over, resulting in Hall lying flat on the floor as a bouncer ‘flew’ through to the keeper. Perhaps he could teach Eoin Morgan a thing or two about how to play the short ball.
Scoring 120 runs off the last 10 overs had helped The Philanderers set the Remnants an imposing target of 183 to win but there was to be no taking the foot off the throttle this time around. Jonah Munday and Freddie Perkins took the new ball, bowling economically but unable to take the first wicket (although the reporter would like it to be noted that John Howe dropped a sitter of a caught behind chance). As Pimblett turned to the wiley bowling combination of Ragnauth and Nigel Gadsby the required run rate continued to rise but The Philanderes remained wicketless.
Picton-Turbevill continued his impressive performance by taking 2-13 from his 3 overs although apparently he has some of the fielders around the bat to thank for one of them as they apparently talked the opposition number three in to heaving across the line resulting in his leg stump being pegged back (the reporter missed all of this exchange whilst standing at long-on, ask George Hall for more details).
The highlight of the bowling innings came in the last two overs as the Remnants required over 60 runs to win. Ben Davies combined some beautiful deliveries with three head high full tosses (leaving umpire Pimmers twitching about being removed from the attack) in his one over followed by captain Pimblett himself bowling some genuine ‘seeds’ in the final over of the match which only went for two runs and beat the bat on more than one occasion. The Philanderers ended up cruising to a 44 run victory made even better when we found out the on site bar was open.
Freddie Perkins
'Captain Pimblett and his merry band celebrating victory'
'Match action at Fitz seen from a distance'