The Intellectuals

25th Aug 2019 - Alexandra Palace
Won by 2 wickets - NRR = -4.07

On the hottest late August bank holiday weekend in living memory, a touring side from the EUIPO (modestly named 'The Intellectuals') visited London for a reverse fixture of CIPA CITMA CC's 2017 tour. That tour ended up with one win apiece, so a tie-breaker was on the cards.

As dictated by tour tradition, we allowed the Intellectuals to bat first and their openers went out to bat cheered on by a healthy bank-holiday crowd of CIPA CITMA family and friends (including two born this summer!). 

It was hard work in the field, a short boundary and fast outfield meant regular jogs down the hill to collect balls. Captain Andy Spurr regularly switched the bowlers to try to get a breakthrough, ending up using nine bowlers with differing levels of success. Eventually, we thought we had our first wicket - their captain reached a century but unfortunately (but quite rightly) refused the shouts of the crowd to retire. It was however ironic that he called in his former partner (and club president) back to the clubhouse after reaching a mere 50...

In retrospect, it might have been better to have not taken any wickets at all as their number 3 came in on the back of scoring 184* the day before. All attempts to keep him off strike were futile until the final over when Spurr clean bowled two in two balls. The field was set for the hattrick ball, three slips, two gullies and everyone else close in catching. Andy then bowled it wide towards the slip corden and they managed a run to the keeper to return the star batsman to strike. I'll leave it to the reader to guess where the remainder of the over went.

A target of 233 was set, which seemed to be about par given the short boundaries and fast outfield.

Justin Wilson and Jon Bailey strode out confidently and played with patience and restraint for the first, er, 8 balls, before Justin uncharacteristically danced down the wicket and was very casually stumped. Deepak Winston was also deceived by the pace and was already through his shot by the time the ball hit his front pad and trickeld onto the stumps. 

This brought on our more 'variable' batsmen - literally anything could have happened, and CIPA CITMA were already looking forward to an early pint (one way or another). Fortunately, the bat found the ball quite frequently, and invariably that brought a boundary.

John Hull and John Flemming entertained the crowd first, before being caught and bowled respectively. The next few batsmen got themselves in, and then out with the pressure of the total clearly taking effect.

Adam Darling, a ringer recruited at the last moment wasn't bothered by the pressure and played a chanceless innings (there was one very good LBW appeal though...) to bring it home with a few overs to spare.

Another tight game in the scorching heat against The Intellectuals - it almost was like we were back in Alicante!
The two teams retired to the bar where awards were handed out by the defeated opposition.

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