Treasury dragons

16th May 2017 - Alexandra Palace
Lost by 35 runs - NRR = -1.75

CIPA CC’s season got off to a stuttering start on a damp and gloomy Tuesday at Ally Pally. Despite the rigorous pre-season training in the nets at Lords and the Oval, CIPA were comfortably beaten by the Treasury Dragons.

Soon-to-be-Dad and captain Andy Spurr, now sporting an acceptable haircut, lost the toss. We were made to bowl first.

The skip had plenty of (similar) options to choose from thanks to a strong bowling line up of Al Davidson, David Gallagher, Stuart Lumsden, Andy Spurr, Bruce Torrance and Justin Wilson. The Dragons got off to a confident start by dispatching the first ball loosener to the boundary and then proceeded to pile on the runs in the early stages of the game.

A couple of characteristic CIPA drops later (including a chance of the utmost difficulty for Jon Bailey off Al Davidson’s bowling – deceptively mid-height and mid-pace – which Al had absolutely nothing to be miffed about), Bruce Almigthy was brought on. He took one wicket early on in the game thanks to an Andy Spurr snaffle, and then decimated their middle order thanks to a triple-wicket maiden. The Dragons set a solid, but not unreachable, target of 136.

Justin Wilson (15) laid the foundations for the response, but was one of only three players to reach double figures (the other two being Bruce, with 11, and Stu, with 25*). Seven batsmen were clean-bowled, which was reflective of CIPA’s reluctance to bat with a straight bat and inability to adapt from the pre-season indoor training to the low-bouncing Ally Pally deck. Stu’s silky cameo (25*) - complete with a sprinkling of trademark dabs to third man – very briefly raised hopes of an unlikely steal but was sadly not enough to see CIPA over the line.

Login to see and make comments