GCC v Brixton Barbarians - Match Report - 9th September 2018

by Rob Navratil

So to the last game of the season, a warm but autumnal feel was in the air when the first Gs arrived in SE21. Our opposition the Brixton Barbarians were already in the nets at 11am and their backroom team arrived just before the toss with bottles of wine for company.

A mid-September Turney Road pitch looked the nicest we’d seen all season. With the outfield left long for the oncoming rugby season it was a day to lift it over the top and not textbook drives across the turf.

The Baa-Baas won the toss and stuck us in. Cunners, ever the one to mix up the apple cart gave The Chancellor the call to pad up and he strode out to open with Dave.

It was a studious start with Brixton’s openers on the money but we soon found our scoring zones. Jamie came out at 3 to join Chris after Dave fell for 10 off Shaw. The two set about building a partnership. Some nicely struck fours by both to all parts culminated in the sweetest of sixes from Chris over long on. Patrolling the boundary was the rest of the Humphries family, somewhat surprised by our new opener saying “he told me he didn’t bat!”.

Chris fell trying to knock one into Dulwich Park, not before bringing up his maiden Gardeners fifty from 49 balls. Congrats all round. A partnership of 74 for the second wicket.

When Olly fell shortly after, we were 129 for 3 after 25 overs. Saj came in at 5 to join Jamie.

They were just getting going when Jamie fell 2 short of his half century caught Shaw off Malla.

Skipper Nick with Saj would see us to our 40 overs with a great partnership of 81. Saj starting to tee off towards the end tallying his best score of the season with 76 only to hole out off the final ball of the innings.

A pretty respectable 255 for 5 at the end of our dig.

Time for our bowlers to run in hard for the last time this season. Ludo joined Rob sharing the new ball and was a great partnership having the Barbarians tied down to just 35 from the first 15 overs. Rob sent down his allotted 8 for just 4 runs removing opener Pinn for 9 in the process.

The pressure showed when a heckle from the sidelines came “it IS limited overs you know?”

The elastic snapped and BB were behind the rate, they had no choice but to play some shots and cue our first-change pairing of Sam and Ed. A great little spell from Ed picking up 3 from 6 and Sam once again pounding in to collect another 3for to finish his season strong.

A wicket a piece for Chris and Nick finished off a team who had a ew decent bowlers and a couple of handy batsmen but a strong Gardeners team were too much on this occasion.

A comfortable victory in the end by 106 runs

RN