Commendable New Rover Efforts in the Loss to Rawdon

New Rover 1st XI show great concentration and resilience despite losing at home to Rawdon 1st XI by 136 runs.

After winning the toss, Rawdon chose to bat first. In fact, it was the first time I had seen a team elect to bat this season, an indicator of the pleasant June conditions. Clearly this was a good decision, and a strong upper-order batting performance saw Rawdon score 296 runs. This was a big score but there wasn’t anything wrong with New Rover’s bowling or fielding. While at the top of the Rawdon batting order, Jake Hodges scored a 50 before being caught off the bowling of Mohammad Khan in the 20th over, it felt that New Rover had done well not to keep the average run rate beneath 5 an over at drinks, 25 overs through. At this halfway point in the first innings, the score was 115 for 2. 

Rawdon batting

It was after drinks when having many wickets left in the bag really seemed to release the Rawdon batters. Most notably, number three, Will Joyce raced to 100 runs off 105 balls; number four, Andrew Duckworth added 43 off 49 balls; and then number seven, Joel Newlove hit a bonkers 36 runs off 12 balls. So many strong individual scores, and an overall innings score of 296 might suggest that everything was going Rawdon’s way, but New Rover’s resilience in the field did pay off in the form of 4 bowling points. In addition to commendable concentration in the field until the end, Aqsad Ali and Mohammad Khan deserve particular shout outs, taking 3 and 5 wickets respectively. Moreover, taking 9 wickets overall can be seen as a success considering that Rawdon were only 4 down going into the 45th over. 

New Rover started their run chase in an incredibly positive mood, with Michael Richmond looking as comfortable as ever behind the ball, and Fahim Khan scoring 12 runs in the second over. However, Once both these two were out before the tenth over, and the score was at 33 for 3, it looked like it would be a particularly tricky late afternoon of batting. Adding only another 33 for the next three wickets was yet another challenging blow and at this point it must be said that a win looked impossible. Nevertheless, New Rover continued to commendably fight late on into the second innings for a second batting point. At eight in the order, Minhaj Patel’s 53 off 50 balls was a great watch and even at number eleven, Drew Fullalove hit a rapid 10 runs off the first 3 balls he faced. 

Ultimately New Rover were all out before the 40th over and were left 136 runs off the target, so it must be said the Rawdon bowling attack was statistically more successful than. Nevertheless, ball by ball it did not seem particularly more accurate or threatening. If New Rover had just taken a couple of their nine wickets early on I think things could have looked very different. The home team may have lost but deserve each and every of the 6 match points, arguably more. 

You can also read this report in full at: New Rover CC