Young Gents and Sanjay Shine, But Buck Steals The Show

The sun shone on another festive Burton's Court extravaganza as Sloane Club fell short after a promising start in pursuit of The Gents' 234/5, a total earned by remarkably consistent batting on a true pitch. Sanjay Patel just failed to become the fourth Gent to score fifty and take four wickets in an innings as he upped his season's batting average to 173, Sachin Desai scored his maiden fifty and Paul Turpin put an early drop behind him to bag four victims. Ahsan Iqbal, along with Sachin, carded his highest club score and was one of three men in the forties.

As befitting the prestigious surroundings, there was huge availability for what was practically an intraclub match, with Sloane Club, under Buck's captaincy, bolstered by Naveed Khan (plus visiting brother-in-law Ali), Mark Sciberras, Dhruv Patel and two of Dhruv's Close PF colleagues, who batted well in last year's Twenty/20. Gents batted by agreement and there was early drama when Lalam, who had cut the first ball of the day for four, was run out at the non-striker's end when bowler Donovan deflected a straight drive onto the stumps. A ton stand for the second wicket saw Gents in control and though Desai senior and Inkollu fell in quick succession, Ahsan Iqbal and the captain posted a quick 70. Dhruv got reward for a testing spell of off-breaks by trapping Iqbal and Shu Desai edged behind first ball, but Richard Palmer smote mightily, pulling the day's only six over long-on. Cue discussion about ground rules, ball hits tree equals four, etc. - but the umpire signalled six so that is what is in the book. His was a promising innings to set alongside the earlier contributions by established batsmen. The DIY tea arrangements worked well and as the game had started punctually there was time to catch up with the FC Chad boys, including Barry Russell, who now plays for Whitstable CC in Kent alongside his fourteen year-old son, who took two fine catches here. A fixture there was discussed for 2010.

Sloane Club based the batting around the Gents and Close PF lads and this stratagem worked well, Buck surviving an early drop at the wicket to card his highest score since 2002 and Khan unflustered in a solid opening stand of 53 in 13.4 overs against bowling of pace and quality with the ball beginning to swing. It took Hemin Patel to break the stand, whereupon he and Sanjay began to make serious inroads into the batting. Palmer juggled then pouched an Ali drive at long-off, Turpin snaffled two off the skipper (the second to dismiss Buck, a fine diving effort) and it was 89/4. Wickets fell as Sloane Club tried to up the rate and Patrudu Lalam, on his first bowl for the club, struck twice in his first over on his way to 3-15. Two more wickets fell in the 35th. over off the skipper's spinners, Sloane short but they had batted solidly. Yoss Donovan was keen to renew in 2010, the best result of the day.