Scorecard

Cookham Dean Cricket Club Friendly 1st XI v Sonning on Sun 19 Sep 2021 at 12.30pm
Cookham Dean Cricket Club Won by 25 runs

Match report Cookham Sunday XI produced a narrow victory over Sonning at Rickett’s Field on Sunday.
On an overcast day captain Richardson won the toss and decided to bat first. DJ Singh and Jay Bajwa opened the innings and got off to a reasonable start reaching 22 for no loss off 5 overs, helped in no small part by the glut of extras the Sonning bowling was providing. Bajwa was the first to go for 13 with the score on 27. This bought Cookham’s prodigal son, Simon D’Ardenne to the crease, who quickly set out to deny as many of Cookham’s team a chance to bat as possible.

D’Ardenne and Singh put together a solid partnership as Cookham looked to build a decent score, and runs began to flow a little easier, especially after the change bowlers enter the attack. Both reached their respective 50s in good time, before Richardson decided it was time to pull D’Ardenne in before he ruined anybody elses day. Singh was dismissed shortly afterwards for a well-made 67 with the score on 160 and Cookham threatened to have a little wobble as Lashvein Srisankar fell soon afterwards and the runs began to slow. However, Kulvinder Singh then produced a bludgeoning counterattack, getting to 34 in very quick time. Chris Mann was dismissed off the last ball of the innings to leave Cookham with a competitive looking 207 for 4 from their 35 overs.

Richardson will have been concerned to see 1st team captain Ben Millar and club captain Simon Foster both watching on from the sidelines, as the Cookham Dean hierarchy clearly consider whether the end of the season is the right time to pull the plug on Richardson’s tenure, despite the stronger showing in the second half of the season.

With the Sunday batting award all but settled by about mid-May, an interesting subplot for the second innings was that Peter Manchester and James Taylor were both tied as leading wicket taker for the Sunday side on 12 wickets (along with James Le Fleming). The two opened the attack, and Taylor set about to open up a gap from his fellow bowler by taking 2 early wickets, including a very questionable LBW which Taylor refused to recall despite more than a suspicion of an inside edge. However, this bought Powell to the crease, an out of work Easyjet pilot, who now works as a local restaurant manager (more on this later). Powell soon started putting Cookham to the sword, and seeing the clearly capable batsman, Taylor scurried out of the attack to protect his figures. Kulvinder Singh battled hard with Powell, but took some tap, however despite this he was able to keep chipping away with valuable wickets at the same time, finishing with 3 for 57. The match was in the balance as DJ Singh bowled well without much reward from the other end. Through the innings the overs on the scoreboard seemed to fluctuate between 3 overs ahead or 3 overs behind and so the equation swung drastically, in each teams favour accordingly. At the halfway point Greg Davis, already a few pints deep and wearing a black tracksuit top and shorts, was drafted in as a substitute fielder, and to bully captain Richardson and question all of his decisions.

The game swung on a few crucial incidents, firstly and most notably Powell, who by this point had produced a blistering 83 was summoned by his restaurant for Sunday dinner service, meaning Sonning’s main attacking threat was taken away. Then Kashish Choudhary produced a brilliant run out, with a relay throw from the boundary via Kulvinder Singh to remove a lower order batsman listed in the scorebook only as ‘A’. Choudhary and D’Ardenne produced a couple of lower order wickets, in no small part due to Sonning seeming to enjoy giving their own batsman out for soft LBWs (D’Ardenne didn’t even appeal for his!). Nonetheless with 4 overs to go and 1 wicket left, Sonning still had an outside chance of victory and their last partnership had already added around 20. Pantomime villain James Taylor then re-entered the attack. The match ended when captain Richardson, who had acted as a human sieve in the field, and added nothing with the bat or ball, managed to surprise many of teammates by taking a decent catch in the outfield to give Taylor his 3rd wicket and Cookham the win.

The win was Cookham’s 6th on the bounce (excluding the extra T20 against Holyport) and gives Cookham a record of 12 wins and 8 defeats on a Sunday, with one game left to play.

Cookham Dean Cricket Club Friendly 1st XI Batting
Player Name RunsMB4s6sSRCtStRo
extras
TOTAL :
5nb 21w 10b 5lb 
for 4 wickets
41
207		        
Dhananjai Singh ct Lilley b Lilley 67 10 1
Jaisreet Bajwa b Ali 13 3
Simon D'Ardenne Retired Not Out  50 5 1
Lashvein Srisankar ct Ali b Aarav 0
Chris Mann Bowled  2
Kulvinder Singh Not Out  34
James Taylor  
Peter Manchester  
Dave Brooks  
Kashish Choudhary   1
Isaac Richardson   1

Sonning Bowling

Player nameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Ali7.0018118.002.57
Fera7.003200.004.57
Indie7.013000.004.29
Gough7.005900.008.43
Lilley4.0121121.005.25
Aarav2.0014114.007.00
Prof A Driver1.001300.0013.00

Sonning Batting
Player name RMB4s6sSR
extras
TOTAL :
5nb 8w 3b 1lb 
for 9 wickets
17
182 (31.2 overs)		     
R Skeill ct D Singh b Taylor 0
Prof. A Driver lbw Taylor 4
B Powell Retired Not Out  83
W Hibberdine b K Singh 16
I Sahota b K Singh 0
A Kareem ct Richardson b Taylor 24
S Naqui ct D'Ardenne b K Singh 5
Aarav lbw D'Ardenne 16
A. run out (Choudhary) 2
M Lilley lbw Choudhary 3
Arun Not Out  14

Cookham Dean Cricket Club Friendly 1st XI Bowling

Player NameOversMaidensRunsWicketsAverageEconomy
Peter Manchester5.002800.005.60
James Taylor5.221334.332.44
Kulvinder Singh7.0053317.677.57
Dhananjai Singh5.002800.005.60
Kashish Choudhary5.0033133.006.60
Jaisreet Bajwa1.00700.007.00
Simon D'Ardenne3.00919.003.00