Match Report - 1st XI v/s Teddington Town CC

Saturday, 24th June 2023

Sutton Challengers Cricket Club got back to winning ways with a comprehensive 98 run victory over Teddington Town CC at Teddington Town CC cricket ground.

With the toss forfeited after the delayed arrival of SCCC, TTCC asked SCCC to bat on a hot and humid afternoon. Deepak Rajurkar and Poovaiah Machaiah started off sedately seeing off the new ball without major issues and had a 25-run Opening partnership. Deepak was given out LBW against Elvis Malhotra against the run of play, but Prashant Sawant came in and looked in good touch straightaway with a string of boundaries. A 57-run partnership for the 2nd wicket ensured that SCCC kept the scoreboard moving without major drama. Prashant was dismissed LBW off the bowling of David Goodman for a well made 38.

Leading run scorer for SCCC this season, Inder Singh joined Poovaiah in the middle and started to accelerate the scoring from the word go. The pair put on a 59-run partnership before double strike rocked SCCC - Poovaiah was stumped off David Goodman for a struggling 43 and Raghu was caught in the deep off David Goodman for a duck.

With the score reading 143 for 4 and 13 overs left in the innings, 1st XI debutant Anand Vemuri joined Inder and they both started picking the gaps more easily and stitched another 50+ run partnership. With the heat and humidity catching up, Inder had to retire from the innings due to severe cramps on 71.
Chintu Vaidya walked in and with 4 overs left, both Anand and him had all the license to go all guns blazing.They ended up scoring 26 runs off the last 2 overs with Anand making a well made 47 and Chintu on 13. SCCC ended up with 244/5 in their 45 overs. For TTCC, David Goodman was the pick of the bowlers picking up 3/49 from his 9 with captain Elvis Malhotra picking up 1/32 from his 9.

The chase of 245 was always going to be hard for TTCC on a pitch where scoring was not easy when bowlers hit the hard lengths. They did get off to a good start scoring at 5 per over in the first four overs, but once Srikanth Sharma and Raghu Krishnappa found their rhythm with the new ball, the scoring completely stopped. A string of maidens led to the fall off both openers with both Srikanth and Raghu
scalping one each.

Mandar Desai and Elvis Malhotra stitched together a good little partnership taking them through to the first drinks break. Mandar especially was severe on anything full, clearing the boundary couple of times in his score of 27. He was eventually bowled off debutant Anand Vemuri who looked lively with the ball, being able to extract a bit more off the pitch than the other bowlers.

At the other end Salim Mithani was already into an amazing spell of bowling as he troubled batsmen on both their edges. He eventually got his first wicket nicking Hemant Patil off and followed it up with the wicket of Mohseen Noori. He eventually finished with figures of 4/22 off his 9 overs. Altaf Dobani and
Ravi Dobani provided a bit of lower order resistance for TTCC with a 40-run partnership but it wasn't good enough for TTCC as they were eventually all out for 146. Salim was ably supported by Anand who picked 2/10 off his 5.2 overs. Vaibhav, Srikanth, Raghu and Deepak also chipping in with a wicket each.

With this win SCCC moved upto 4th in the league table with a clash against 3rd placed West End(Esher) C next week, which could crucial to the promotion hopes of both teams.

Key Highlights:
Raghu Krishnappa played his 100th league for SCCC
Inder Singh moved up to 6th highest run scorer in the Surrey County League(across all divisions)