I arrived at the Griffin and was welcomed by some very handsome teammates including Yanni Baveas, who was delighted to be joining us for this fixture after we had to forfeit Ainslie to the 1s. First impressions of the Griffin were very positive and many of us felt excited to be spending a lot of our Saturdays here this summer. The one big question getting flung about the place though… what will the teas be like?

12.45pm and we are still waiting on a couple of our own to arrive (I won’t name and shame) however somehow, we still had twice as many as the oppo, who had a mere 5 players arrive on time for the scheduled 1pm start.

In the absence of Nibbler, we were led by the reliable Tom Glynn-Jones, who tossed up and was told we would bowl first, after incorrectly which side the coin would land on. My assumption would be that they didn’t quite fancy the idea of coming out to field with just 5.

Whilst the Chelsfield players continued to arrive, we kicked things off with the intimidating opening pair of Ritik Jaat and Niraj Thakker.

Ritik picked up exactly where he left off against the 1st last week, bowling with serious heat on a good length, just outside the off stump most deliveries. The opening bats were not quite as comfortable as that little shit Iskander was last week.

Niraj from the other end helped Ritik to pile more pressure on the bats, and this endless spell of unhittable bowling from both ends led to one of the openers trying to hit one down the ground, just to mistime it and pick out the safe hands of our skipper TGJ at mid on. This was the perfect example of earning a wicket through a great opening spell of just good line and length, giving the bats nothing to work with, running their patience dry.

Ritik then got what he thoroughly deserved, bowling the other opener and giving what I would describe as an early contender for send off of the year.

I will just add that this send off did not come undeserved after this magical spell saw many unsuccessful appeals, including one where said opening bat decided that he would stand at the crease pointing at his bat to convince his fellow teammate umpiring that he hit the ball, despite this clearly not appearing to be the case. Our slip fielders weren’t best impressed by this behaviour.

After 6 very fine overs each from these gents it was time for TGJ to make a change, with Daley and Anderson being the replacements. Ritik’s 6 overs went for just 5 runs (insert Vikki’s infamous death emoji).

Some bad luck did strike though as a rolled ankle meant that Niraj’s day in the field had to end, leaving us a fielder short. For a short period we actually dropped down to 9, when a random bloke approached the playing field asking if anybody drives a white Honda. Jay Patel had only gone and parked where he shouldn’t have, so had to go and move his car in the middle of our innings.

We continued the pressure with the ball from both ends and when a straight forward chance off Daley at square leg managed to go down, this was an encouraging sign that more wickets were coming soon.

This sign proved to be correct as another chance from Daley went up, this time taken safely in the hands of Ritik. Then Joey from the other end was all over them with his well-flighted leg spin, taking 2 from 2 balls and eyeing up an opportunity to join the famous steak group. Well the steak group where no one who’s taken a hat-trick has actually bought steaks for the existing members from what I’m aware. Sounds like a bit of a farce to me.

With Chelsfield 5 down for not too many runs at drinks, the thought of an early tea break was sounding very appealing. Then an edge straight into Yanni’s gloves from Daley shortly after the break further added to this excitement.

Chelsfield then managed to fight back with a resilient partnership, with a lot of dot balls and the majority of their runs coming behind the wicket.

Qammar put in a solid shift bowling his full allocation in yet another very tidy spell, with Lonsdale brought on at the death to be the man that finally broke this gritty partnership that left us stood in the field for longer than we wanted to. Qammar then became the second bowler of our innings to find himself on a hat trick ball, following a highly surprising trigger by the umpire that had previously denied us many clear LBW decisions.

Lonsdale claimed the final wicket with 3 balls left of the innings and Chelsfield were all out for just 160.

Now for the moment of truth. Teas. It is worth mentioning that the oppo actually requested to opt out of teas, and I think it’s fair to say that this would have looked like a very poor decision had they been granted this request.
A mouth watering spread of veggie Chilli and rice with all the sides (tortilla chips, jalapeños, pickled red onions, cheese), along with some freshly baked sausage rolls and garlic bread, left all of us delighted and gagging to return here again. I hope no one is questioning my motives when I say that I have now added an extra layer of desire to secure my place in the 2s after my first tea experience at the Griffin.

So we set out for the chase and we were led at the front by none other than Jo Hockings and Yanni Baveas. The sun decided to disappear into the clouds and all of a sudden it had flipped from a hot summers day to the rest of the team and spectators scrambling around for additional jumpers to put on.

Both batters started strong, giving Chelsfield no glimmers of finding an early breakthrough. With 66 on the board at the fall of the first wicket, we had a very strong platform to kick on and chase this total without much trouble.

One of the strangest parts of this match was when the Griffin bar area suddenly started filling up with more spectators dressed in Lycra, as apparently this is the hangout spot for Brixton cycle club who like to watch village cricket games after a long ride. They were pretty locked into our match despite the TV’s inside displaying an Arsenal home loss.

Whilst Yanni battled on for more than 33 overs, the rest of the order were falling far too frequently, letting Chelsfield right back into the game.

With 7 overs left we needed 49 to win and Yanni’s heroic innings unfortunately fell 10 runs short of his second 50 for the club. In came Ritik and we all know exactly what he’s going to try to do.

So, after his trademark attempt of the ramp shot against a spinner (where he was already set up to ramp it before the delivery was even bowled), he started to whack some long balls around the ground, keeping us on track with the required rate of 7 per over. I was happy to support by just taking the singles so that he could be the aggressor, but when an inside edge played onto my stumps on the first ball of a new bowler, we now found ourselves 7 wickets down with 21 runs still needed.

With Ritik still in the middle though, we should still be the clear favourites to chase this down. 2 balls later, Ritik gets caught. Shit. We’re in trouble. Then when a third wicket fell in this same over, Niraj hobbles out the crease with the assistance of a runner, this might just be the most heroic innings from a number 11 if he can pull this off.

Niraj and Oli need 19 from the last 2 overs, and some nicely played 1s and 2s scored from both bats give us some hope that we could do it. But it wasn’t meant to be as the final wicket fell and the match was lost by 14 runs.

A very disappointing result after what was such a great performance in the field; and despite Jo and Yanni providing a great platform at the top, the rest of us in the order let them down.

With the match wrapped up we bought a couple of “jugs” at the Griffin bar. These jugs are basically a shot glass in comparison to the DSG jugs though as they are just 1 litre. So with this in mind we walked around the corner to join the 1s at the DSG. With no wins to celebrate though, we could at least celebrate some big milestones from Max and Dooz, and a spectacular century from the latter.

Match report by Callum Daley