England battle hard but lose Euros Final… Salix battle hard

Well what a week! England make it to the final of the Euros; England’s cricketers wish farewell to Jimmy with a resounding thrashing of the Windies (in 2 days and 1 session robbing the Day 4 ticket holders of their enjoyment but I’m not bitter) and yet… England lose consecutive Euros finals and Salix lose 10 in a row to the Whalers; twas ever thus… and now Davski’s report.

We returned to Barnes for a second fixture of the season against Whalers, though with attentions rather focused towards finishing in time for the evening’s Euros finals. This must surely be the excuse offered by Skipper Raj for committing the unforgiveable sin of winning the toss in breach of our customary practice of many years. 200-odd chanceless Whalers runs later, scored at roughly 8 an over, and it was left to the openers to retire after both passing their centuries. And the skip to perhaps learn the lesson. CK finally struck late on, before Sai added a couple more including the by-now customary Krutik stumping. 281 runs looked rather formidable even on a decent batting track.

As it was to prove, since our response was never on par. Wickets fell steadily with most of our batting line-up failing to build on their start, holing out, struggling to slow, low bowling, or in a couple of cases to a Skip seemingly keen to hasten their demise with a generous LBW decision. Syed’s late cameo was an entertaining one and meant the ultimate defeat came in under 50-runs, but just as the football later, the exact scoreline might have mislead slightly as to the closeness of the game.