A simple equation, win versus the League Champions and hope either Shenfield or West Essex lose to stay up. Lose and we're done for. Winning the toss and batting seemed like a good idea, wicket looked flat, even Atif said so. It was therefore a bit of a shock when he chipped one up early on to go for a duck.
Arshad was aggressive from the start and the score moved briskly along with Dip as understudy. A flurry of wickets left us on 71-4 with more than 30 overs to go, the yawning chasm of relegation opening before our feet. Dip and the Chairman had other ideas with a pivotal stand of 94 giving us hope. Big hitting Dip, mainly off half the bat, smashing 4's and 6's to keep the Wanstead attack honest. At 165 Baulcs succumbed to a big turner from Pratheek, leaving us still well short of a decent total. Mudasser had other ideas, carving 43 from just 30 balls, hoisting us well above 200. Wickets and runs in the last few overs got us to 257, we thought not too bad. Though Wanstead are not League Champs for nothing.

Gritten and Patel put together a large opening partnership, once again the chasm appeared. We needed a spark, the fielding was ok but not spectacular, the outfield was bumpy but not dangerous. Faz got the first wicket. Runs continued to flow mainly from Gritten's bat until a sensational piece of outfielding from Mudasser, fully 50 yards out at cover, one hand pick up and flat throw to the keeper had Gritten well short of his ground for 80. We had a chance.
Salman kept the momentum up along with Singh and a young Nihal Patel, had us wondering. Dip in a man of the match performance took 2 wickets to peg them back. But come the moment, come the man....Jauhar was asked to bowl a bit of seam up rather than spin. He has been recovering from a hernia op earlier in the season. Much to our joy it started to work. Though we were running out of runs to protect. A couple of misfields added to the tension. With 3 overs left, 16 were needed with 3 wickets left. Jauhar then took 2 in 2. Nine down with 10 needed. 2 were scrambled by the last pair before, with just 8 balls left, Jauhar re-arranged Zaman's stumps giving us the win by 7 runs. With the news that Shenfield had lost to Woodford Wells, the chasm shut firmly...for another year ! Joy was unrefined at managing to secure our stay in the Prem. That and the 1st XI finally getting into Div 2 and the 4's doing their own Houdini act, the party kicked off in style !

Baulcs