Ts come out on top on the May Day Bank Holiday
A one sided affair but great day nonetheless
Monday May Bank Holiday and the HAC lads travelled down to the glorious site of Twickenham Green for what they thought would be gentle encounter. And it was .... until Nikhil Nomula entered the fray (see here for the card)!
Nomula shines with the ball
Ethan Wright lost the toss for the Ts and HAC elected to bat first on what looked to be a great deck on a beautiful sunny day! 1st team opening bowler Gurjit Sandhu took the new cherry alongside Nomula. Sandhu came off wicketless to his frustration despite his best efforts but bowled a tight spell going at under 4 an over. Nomula on the other hand returned with a tidy two'fer with figures of 2 for 18 off 5 overs.
Then came the spin duo of Harmeet Singh and Tom Field who both bowled tidy spells returning figures of 8-38-0 and 5-18-3 respectively. HAC kept the board ticking over with opener Tom Huxtable really starting to get into his stride hitting a couple of glorious cover drives leaving skipper Ethan Wright scratching his head. Dom Thamby was struggling with a sore back & a tight hamstring but came on mid-innings and was rather unlucky for his spell of 8-39-1 with a couple of lack-lustre fielding attempts of his bowling.
Skipper Wright was reluctant to put himself on in order to make a game of it and he rested the ever reliable Eugene Burger so he threw the ball to Sam Johnson and Sanjit Sandhu. Junior Jonno was tireless in his efforts producing a couple of jaffers leaving the HAC middle order bamboozled at times returning figures of 4-24-0. Sanjit Sandhu's guile and panache with the ball proved too much for some of the HAC batsman returning figures of 5-19-3. He also removed the key man, Huxtable, for an impressive 81.
Nomula goes bonkers with the bat
Twickenham's turn to bat and up stepped Bollywood superstar Rajdeep Choudhry alongside the unknown quantity of Prabhu Dev. Rajdeep hit a couple of lusty blows and punters thought they were in for an exhibition of batting brilliance, but sadly he nicked off for 12. In came skipper Ethan Wright who looked in fine form before departing for 14 to a dubious (apparently) LBW decision off the bowling of Heranjal.
In came Nikhil Nomula at number 4 to join Prabhu in the middle. New opener Prabhu started off tentatively nudging the 1s and 2s finding boundaries hard to come by. However, he soon picked up the pace ending up on 70no at a run a ball on his TCC home debut.
The Ts eased home with 17 overs to spare with Nikhil stealing the show. Nomula fired a quickfire 70 off only 40 balls smashing four 6s and 10 4s leaving some of the TCC locals diving for safety. Twickenham's own Darren Stevens punished the HAC bowling. Some respite for the HAC lads was the great hospitality shown by Twickenham after the game with the guys enjoying a few drinks and a braai together served up by none other than TCC chairman Eugene Berger, a great day all round!