Match report for Treasury

HMTreasury 124 for 4 off 20 beat Mandarins 105 all out off 20

Three 20/20s in as many weeks and three defeats, all by about a 20 run margin. Now, I don't want to overanalyse this but there are similarities in the way we have gone down which suggest a pattern:
A) not fielding 11 men. On this occasion, thanks to great work by JC and welcome support from the Superstars, we did actually have 11 but they were stymied by the South West Rail strike and Hammersmith Bridge closure ( note to all - it is closed indefinitely and completely buggers traffic in the west south west London quadrant. Roehampton match manager to note in particular.) This meant that Stan didn't arrive until over no 13, and Robin until over no 18. HMT lent us three but we still fielded with only 9 or 10. Plugging the gaps gets difficult. Say 7 runs given away.

B) We can't cover ground in the field or throw. Another 7 runs given away. Pick more younger men. With arms.

C) We can't run. We just can't. Never could. In the case of the aged and lame, never will. It looks so simple when the opposition do it. But we can't.  We either don't try or get run out. 7 more at least given away. 21 runs, the margins of three defeats.

Which means that basically in terms of the batting and bowling departments we are very competitive in this format although 27 wides in this game was too many. Stan took two but was a bit expensive. Stars were Gary With 1 for 14 off his 4 and Paul M conceding only 18 off his. Treasury only had 57 off 12 overs (special mention for ex Mandarin Johnny Martin who held it together at the top of their order for 25 retired) but accelerated thanks to French and Oliver. Still, 124 looked get able.

That it wasn't was due to C above, plus some very tight opening bowling which put the star studded Mandarins batting under a bit of early pressure. James Hewitt from Superstars and Paddy Turner leant from HMT got 19 and 25 respectively to keep us in the hunt, plus 22 extras, but the lower order also fell away in the gathering dark ( had I won the toss I would have batted for this reason alone).
General feeling that Chiswick, whilst still very noisy, isn't quite what it was when the evening Concorde used to thunder in over the square and dislodged the bails with its reverb.

Chris B