Two’s Lose at the Valley 7th May 2022.
Twos skipper James McKemey led his troops out at Benfield Valley, Portslade on Saturday for the opening Sussex Division Three fixture of the 2022 campaign. On a strange day for weather the hosts skipper couldn’t get ‘we will field’ out quickly enough after winning the toss. In bowler friendly conditions let’s just say it was a ‘advantageous’ toss to win!
Opener Oliver Gatting (28) instantly got accustomed to the conditions and confidently struck some excellent boundaries along the deck. He and Kamran got the inns off to a useful start of 28 for the first wicket. Former 1st team skipper Jeremy Green was, having admitted he had not picked up a bat for three years, in typical eloquent form. He played the situation perfectly scoring 11 until he tried to leather a full toss for six. After creating a semi solid platform of 50 for 2 Nomads then seemed to be happy to swing the bat rather than graft out a decent score. Baalaaj won’t be happy to have swung across the line to the change bowler and thick edge to mid-wicket for 5 off nine balls. With danger man Kash gone for a duck Nomads had conceded four wickets for just 24 runs. The engine room had seized.
Down the order Stuart Pulford quickly resurrected fading Nomad hopes with a dazzling and powerful 21 not out off 16 balls. With the aid of no less than 31 extra’s the visitors went to tea 129 all out off 28 overs.
The huddle message from James was ‘we are where we are but we are still in this game, bowl well and field well let’s give them nothing’. Pulford had read the memo and in the first over he trapped the opener LBW with just 4 on the board. Ombaashi then bowled Dan Holgate for 8 as the hosts went to 28 for 2. That’s as good as it got for the Nomads. Extra’s started to rack up (31 in total) and a very key chance out deep was spilled. Owen Piper (44) will probably get the headlines at Portslade but in truth it was a good effort from the whole team who calmly chased down 129 for 5 in 26 overs to claim 30 points to Nomads 4.
It probably wont mean much to Stuart given the result, but he gets my Nomads Man of the Match award for offering hope with both bat (21 no out at 10) and ball (17 for 1 off 7 overs). Congrats to Ziggy for his two wickets. And personal message to Adam Ibrahim who made his 2nd team League Debut. Adam, it was never going to be your day out there, but the Nomads are proud to have given you your 2nd team debut and we are certain that there will be some extraordinary days to come as your career develops. Keep working hard! Cobo.
The Two’s have some work to do ahead of welcoming Crawley Eagles to the SCMG on 14th May 2022 12.30 start on the North Square.
Skippers Notes
We had a strong top 7 and just didn’t bat well enough. Credit to Portslade, they bowled well and made the most of a tricky pitch. But too many batters played bad shots. Ollie, who started v well and was v unlucky with his dismissal, was a rare bright spot, along with Stu Pulford’s impressive cameo at the end.
We bowled better,but didn’t have enough runs to defend without something a little miraculous. Stu and Ombaashi struck early, while Ziggy bowled a great spell that yielded two well deserved wickets. One very tough chance went down off Ombaashi which ended up quite costly, but we were constantly behind the game.
A very disappointing one, we simply must bat better. But it is just week one.
Onwards, CoBo. Onwards…