Carpe Secure Victory over Land Security

While England were taking a well earned breather from obliterating the hapless Indians on Friday 5^th August, Carpe’s battle hardened troops soldiered on. In this instance it was to Regent’s Park that they swarmed, or rather dribbled, after work. As the start of the game loomed we realised that we were short of a full eleven.

Our opposition, Land Security XI, were even more numerically challenged. The sun was already lowering itself in the cloud-patterned sky when the resolve to play cricket overcame the fact that only fourteen people had turned up, three of which hailed from that proud cricketing family, the Bremakumars. A twelve over game with eight balls an over was decided upon and Land Security took to the field, bolstered by their reinforcements from some selfless Carpe players.

But with a limited number of fielders and some sterling batting, Carpe’s opening pair of Walker and Stannard were able to race away and build a strong score, striking boundaries with delicious ease. When Walker was sent stalking back to the “pavilion” after being bowled the run rate hardly slowed, the diminished field becoming ever more stretched. All seven batsmen made their mark with Stannard’s 27 not out and Sat Bremakumar’ 32 the pick of the bunch.

Those Carpe players who put the game before their allegiances and played for LS also took a healthy share of the wickets, Sanjay Bremakumar dismissing his younger brother with a satisfied snarl and Dingwall taking the wickets of Nunn and Whitting.

LS padded up with the total of 113 to match before the sun failed or they ran out of wickets. And as the shadows lengthened their two openers used their experience from fielding to find the gaps in Carpe’s net, finding singles with almost every ball. The match’s sole spectator, a bearded man doing yoga on an inflatable ball, must have worried that Carpe’s bowling attack would not be enough to stem the flow of runs. But he didn’t reckon on Stannard who followed up his powerful innings with the bat with a devastating over that dismissed LS’s openers and put Carpe back on the front foot.

As more wickets started to fall Bremakumar Major and Minor found themselves together in the middle battling against the bowling of their brother in a vicious family feud. The fine bowling of the middle child was rewarded as he took the wicket of his older brother much to the delirium of the Carpe field, whose sledging up to this moment had been first rate against their occasional captain.

It was left to your faithful correspondent to take the final but his first wicket, clean bowling LS’s wicket keeper after finally getting his line right after a decidedly wayward first over. To Carpe went the glory of victory; to The Bobbin went the glorious victors.

Greene Denied Century but Carpe Romp to Victory

Sunday was a glorious day by all accounts for Carpe Vinum CC. The sun blazed all afternoon over a village green pitch that could have been plucked from a magazine for the nostalgic. The Seven Sports CC of Chertsey, Carpe’s hosts, only added to the occasion. They provided the team with sumptuous tea and a post-match dinner and proved good company. But they also provided Carpe with that most cherished of delights: a win!

Seven Sports, so called from a collection of teams that gathered together way back in 1947 of which only the cricket team survives, elected to bat first on what was a flattish pitch that kept the ball low. Their openers started brightly, pouncing on loose balls and benefitting from some dropped catches. They had put on 50 runs before the first wicket fell, David Johnson bowled by a storming ball from Sanjay Bremakumar that spattered his stumps across the turf.

He was replaced by his seemingly identical brother, Paul, who continued in the same vein as the score kept climbing. But, following on from his heroics last week, Bremakumar struck twice in one over and once again soon after, with Johnny Heald claiming a scalp for himself. This collapse brought the youngster Jack Johnson (same family!) to the crease. The 12 year old acquitted himself well, surviving some vicious bowling from Skipper Keith to reach 12 unbeaten at the end of his innings and would later take two Carpe wickets. His sister Rachel, a mean bowler herself, supported him to the end after their uncle Paul was dismissed by a fine catch from Dingwall off Hilliard.

The target of 135 for victory looked attainable but when Bremakumar was dismissed trying to slog the second ball, the game was far from safe. However, an outstanding innings by wicketkeeper James Greene, who had been a safe pair of hands throughout Sevens’ innings, steered Carpe to a crushing victory with almost 15 overs to spare. Denied a ton by the cautious and precise innings of Dingwall at the other end, Greene had to settle for 95, almost all of those runs coming from thunderous fours as he battered the increasingly demoralised Sevens bowlers. Dingwall departed for a fine 32, Sanny Bremakumar joining him in the hutch moments later. It was left to your faithful correspondent to see out the win with Greene out in the middle, the two runs not out an essential part of this fine victory.