Gardeners 2018
Gaieties CC v Gardeners CC, 20 May 2018 - a report by Daniel Petrides
On a glorious day in Dulwich, GCC faced off against another GCC with both teams hunting their first win of the season. With the sun beating down of a perfectly flat pitch and fast outfield, J. Schneider won the toss and elected to....bowl.
Despite some uncertain rumblings (rumoured to have been nothing more than residual nausea from the royal wedding), this soon proved to have been a masterstroke. Petrides removed both openers and some economical bowling saw the Gardeners struggle through to a tame 70-2 at drinks. After the break sharp run-outs from T. Schneider and Choueiri, and a fine catch on the boundary from the latter off Trapido, ensured that Gardeners never really looked like setting a big total. Purcell, returning from a decade of exile, quickly ran through the tail to finish with three wickets, and GCC went into tea confident of scoring the required 175.
Early in the GCC innings there was drama when Sen, given out caught behind, was recalled by the opposition captain who deemed to ball to have merely flicked his pad. Despite this early reprieve, GCC made hard work of the task and took drinks on 56-1 after 20 overs. Dutta then fell to a pea-shooting slower ball, before some bold hitting from the Schneider brothers (including a high-score of 56 from Tim) put GCC in sight of victory, only for both to fall with around 50 needed from 10 overs. Another display of fearless hitting from Nieboer - including a gravity-defying flat six - was ably supported by Choueiri, Khalique and Williams. When Nieboer fell to a stunning diving catch with GCC just four from victory, Williams was able to pierce the offside to draw the scores level, before he and Petrides scampered through a leg-side bye to secure victory by three wickets.
