New Rover Succumb to a Convincing Olicanian Performance

Olicanian CC 2nd XI win by 8 wickets at The Richmond Oval

Winning the toss, New Rover put themselves into bat first. They did not score brilliantly early on but did manage not to give wickets away quickly. The home team were 25-0 after the first ten overs and 59-3 after twenty one overs. Considering that there were many wickets left in the bag though, New Rover were not yet in a situation they needed to be overly concerned about in a 45 over match.

New Rover batting

There was some acceleration in the New Rover run rate in the last thirty overs, with the most notable contributions coming from Anshuman Shembekar (30), Ashwin Singh (23), Martyn Knowles (27) and Tyler Coleman (19*). These individual scores did help make the overall score look okay by the end of the innings but, unfortunately from the home team’s perspective, Olicanian CC’s bowlers did not let the run rate reach the heights it really needed to. Three wickets a piece for Richard Lumb and James Hudson helped leave New Rover 152 all out in the final over on a pitch with good batting conditions. 

While Ashwin Singh got a wicket in the first over and Tyler Coleman got one in the ninth over, Olicanan CC managed to get 153 by the end of the twenty second over of their innings. The Olicanian number three, Ian Thomas was able to ease himself to a convincing 85* off only 65 balls. A number of extras were conceded by New Rover too but this was not so much a representation of particularly poor fielding, rather an illustration of extremely tight bowling from Olicanian CC, extremely impressive in conceding three extras.

While the Olicanian victory was convincing, it must be highlighted that the new Rover team had more younger players than usual, alongside a couple of people who don’t regularly play in the team. It is always a little disadvantageous to have more than two younger players perhaps, and Olicanian CC made the most of this on a good batting pitch. 

This match report can also be seen at: New Rover CC