Putney Cup 2011

On Sunday 19th June 2011 we defied the great British summer to complete both rounds of the annual T20 hit-and-giggle fest that is the Putney Cup.

As usual a draw was made for the qualifying matches, with CAMRAswl facing the Plums first up (Fawe Park vs. Bricklayer's Arms being the other semi-final). CAMRAswl won the toss and elected to field, with the pitch damp, the skies grey and one member of the team needing to leave early. Tight opening spells from Tom Carter and Marcus Cowles got us on our way with a run-out and a wicket for Tom C inside the first 8 overs. With runs needed, the Plums went on the attack, but straight bowling was always going to be difficult to get away and wickets fell regularly even as catches went to ground (Tom Brain: 4 wickets, 2 drops) and they duly ended their innings on 96 for 9.

It turned out that the Plums could bowl much better than they batted, as the first over of our reply was a double wicket maiden which had our number 4 batsman walking out at 0-2. The opening bowlers were seen off with caution and without further loss. A couple of big overs from the change bowlers got us back on track, but key wickets fell at the wrong times and we fell agonisingly short on 95 for 9, to lose by 1 run.

The other semi had been similarly close, with the Bricklayer's Arms ending up on the wrong side of a last ball result against Fawe Park, so the fixture which could so easily have been the final ended up as the Shield match for the honour of 3rd place.

CAMRAswl fielded first again, having lost the toss this time, and again the opening bowlers did an excellent job of keeping the run rate down in the first 8 overs. The fielding in this match was slipshod at times, especially following a nasty finger injury to Anthony Baines, and the middle overs much more expensive until order was restored by Shaun Lombard (4-0-18-0) and Keith Worsfold (2-0-11-3) at the death. A target of 131 was higher than we would have liked, but it didn’t look out of reach.

As it turned out, the run chase was more of a canter as Shaun and Ben put on over 100 runs for the first wicket at a very good tempo. Shaun was out with the end in sight and it fell to Marcus to finish the job off with Ben, which he duly did with 6 overs to spare.

The Putney Shield (which was the original Putney Cup trophy) now graces the Sultan until next year...

Overall Result:

1. Fawe Park
2. The Plums
3. CAMRAswl
4. Bricklayer's Arms

Tom Brain - 20 June 2011

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