COLCHESTER and East Essex Cricket Club men’s first XI opened their season with a win over London Eagles CC in the Dukes Essex League Cup first round, writes PHIL WOLSKI.
With Colchester in the premier division and London Eagles in the fourth tier, the gulf, as viewed on paper, should have produced an easy victory for the visitors to Seven Kings public park.
However, the uncovered, local authority-maintained London Eagles SC venue proved to be a great leveller and produced a low-scoring bowler friendly track and an interesting game for the neutral spectator.
Despite fielding only ten men due to a late injury cry off, Charlie Fernandes, standing in for his skipper brother, Simon who was away on Essex First XI duty, elected to bowl on a pitch that did play better than it looked.
The greater scoring challenge was the ill-prepared outfield.
The match, comprising a total of 53 overs, produced only 14 boundaries as batters of decent pedigree struggled to hit the ball off the square.
London Eagles were soon reeling at 11 for two thanks to Colchester veteran opening bowler, Darren Eckford’s accuracy.
Mitu Ahmed (23), Shakeel Ahmed (18) and extras (23) were the only significant scorers for the home side that capitulated to 90 all out after merely 28 of their allotted 45 overs.
The chief architect of their demise was wily swing bowler Vikas Agawal, who extracted maximum benefit from the conditions.
He claimed 3-11 in six overs, including a hat-trick, backed up by Charlie Watts (3-18) and Eckford (2-18).
Seb Wheeler also bagged himself two wickets at the death to mop up the tail.
At the interval, the target didn’t look daunting despite Colchester missing four regular top order batsmen.
However, it was challenging to score runs across an outfield that was simply too long and blanketed in grass clippings that hindered the balls travel.
Superb tight bowling by Eagle's Alongir Ali (seven overs, 3-13) caused the Colchester innings to stutter to 23 for three.
Then Liam Wheeler (28), returning from a season’s absence in New Zealand, gave the visitors’ innings some momentum and after rebuilding to 58 for three, Colchester looked back in control, only for Salman Ahmed (2-16) to then cause a further wobble to 64 for five.
With only four wickets remaining, an upset might possibly have still been on the cards.
Realising that delicate stroke play along the ground wasn’t proving too successful, a few brutal hits by Seb Wheeler (25 not out) and Charlie Fernandes (28 not out) saw Colchester to victory over their third division opponents, inside 26 overs.
It was a valuable playing experience for the Eagles, one of the friendliest groups of cricketers that one could meet.
It is just a shame that grassroots cricket continues to struggle to secure adequate facilities via local authority pitches and it highlights the value of the sponsors that so generously support cricket at Castle Park.
For a full scorecard visit colchesteree.play-cricket.com/website/results/6699170
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