Game 17: 1st XI vs Bedminster 1st XI, Home

Keith's account...

Bristol 1st XI v Bedminster 1st XI, WEPL Premier 1, 26 August 2017
Bristol 243-9 (50 overs), R Panchal 73, L Shaw 63, R Sillars 4-47
Bristol 245-7 (50 overs), M Hammond 114, S Kamuni 82no, N Pollard 3-39
A nail-bitingly close game in a horribly tight league leaves both sides still tantalisingly close to, but not completely guaranteed, safety from relegation going into the final round of matches. Bristol had the worse of the first and last balls of the match after winning the toss and electing to bat. Off the first, James Bracey looked set to pick up a routine boundary from a trade-mark short-arm pull to kick-start his bid for a WEPL run-scoring record, but saw the ball travel perhaps a little squarer and a touch more aerially than he had intended and be impressively scooped up by Joe Millard. Off the last Bedminster number nine Sam Knapp, facing just his second delivery, with his side needing three runs for victory, managed to steer the ball to one of the few unprotected parts of the off-side boundary.
In between, barely a cigarette paper separated the two sides as the advantage swung to and fro. First Bristol’s batsmen recovered well from 17 for 2 following the loss of their talismanic opener, and that of Vir Lakhani who played on for 4. Rishi Panchal, in his debut first XI game of the season, displayed steadfast defence and some powerful straight drives both along the ground and over the in-field, in top-scoring with 73 off 116 balls (the last twenty of which came at a run a ball). First with Paul Redwood, whose innings included one sublime cover-drive for four, straight of the sweeper fielder, and then with Louie Shaw, whose run-a-ball 63 included four fours, and a six and was his finest innings for Bristol this season, Panchal built the foundation for Bristol securing maximum batting points. They lost wickets quickly towards the end, though, and while some late order hitting from Will Rudge (9 off 5 balls) and Tommy Probert (8 off 3 including a huge six on to the hockey pitches) ensured the final total was at least competitive, it was slightly less than had at one time seemed on the cards. Except when Panchal was dropped on 67, generally when Bristol’s batsmen miscued the ball in the air it seemed to go to hand, and Bedminster’s fielders caught their catches well. Their bowlers, however, conceded 23 in wides, giving Bristol three extra overs in the process.
Hardwick made Bristol’s first breakthrough in the eighth over of the Bedminster innings, having Elphick caught behind by Bracey for ten, a ball after a less confident appeal for the same mode of dismissal. Rob Cunliffe was bowled by Dan Jones for the same score after he replaced Rudge from the pavilion end, and Neil Pollard picked up his first wicket when Tom Pugsley gave a catch to Louie Shaw at mid-wicket to leave Bedminster 87-3 in the 22nd over. At the other end, though, Miles Hammond had scored 59 of those runs, at a strike-rate of 100%, with a six and eight fours. Early on Rudge and Hardwick had appeared to be feeding his off-side strength, but you always felt he gave the bowlers a chance: his attempts to reverse-sweep Pollard met with mixed results, and the battle with Jones for a time seemed fairly even.
But Hammond survived and combined with Kamuni in a partnership of 115 in 20 overs that seemed to be putting the game out of Bristol’s reach. Hammond was nearly run out in the 30th over before the pair had put on 50, and countless top-edges seemed to drop into space including two in one Lakhani over off Kamuni’s bat. It was a great catch under pressure by Lakhani on the deep mid-wicket boundary to dismiss Hammond off Hardwick that started to get Bristol back into the game, with 32 runs needed off 45 balls. They followed this up with two more quick wickets – Sillars caught by Lakhani again, this time at long on off Pollard, and Russell LBW to Rudge - and managed to restrict Kamui’s share of the strike so that 13 were still needed off the last two overs.
An audacious ramp shot off the first ball of the 49th, reduced this to 9 off 11 balls, and this was down to 4 from 6 by the time Rudge had taken his sweater for the last time. But the skipper’s decision to persevere with Pollard rather than turning back to the pace of Jones looked like it might pay off when the first three balls of the final over yielded just one run (getting Kamuni off strike in the process), and the fourth saw the end of Millard’s brief innings. The fifth ball was also a dot, and Bristol fans dared to hope again, before Knapp unleashed the final cruel blow.