The Club cricket year 2024 did not get off to…

Patel & Ramachandra star in the rain as 2s dominate in victory
Bramshaw 2s vs Shrewton 2s, County 4 West. Match report written by Bailey Loveless.
On a wet, windy day the 2s hosted Shrewton 2s. With both clubs 1s off we were hoping that Rikki Clarke was not dropping down to the 2s but then to be fair, we also boast a man in the side who has got Jimmy Adams out in Josh “Nugget” Arnold as he played his annual league game for Bram. Thankfully Clarke was nowhere in sight but Arnold certainly was!
Zane “Zanooooooo” D’monte won the toss and elected to have a bat which with the weather around was a bold decision. Simon Booth opened up with William Ridley as the two got off to a solid start before the latter departed for a stubborn 9. This brought Dan “Shroomy” Eckton to the crease, the young man turned 21 last weekend and was on the pull in Popworld and Wiggle, however this time he pulled the ball to square leg to depart cheaply.
Reeling at 30-2 we needed to not bite at the bait and consolidate, however, Kaush “Plenty of Fish” Patel joined Boothy at the crease. Patel, despite his numerous flaws, did drive back 3 hours from Kent in the morning through the rain to play. The pair upped the rate and put us in a really strong position as both went past 50 in a flash before Booth departed soon after.
This brought Arnold to the middle to join Patel. It’s fair to say with the shape of the two, there wasn’t going to be much running between the wickets. Arnold has certainly put on a few pounds since his last competitive game for Bram, apparently, this is due to eating “Hello Fresh for 2” just by himself for the last few months.
Nonetheless, the duo found the boundary plenty of times, with both cracking some big 6s. Patel, unaware he was on 91, decided to charge their spinner as if he was racing out the blocks at Ascot next week, which meant he was stumped in a remarkable innings that included 14 4s and 4 maximums.
D’monte came to the crease to push the score past 200 before he departed for a quick-fire 33. Hello fresh hit a few more 6s to be 46* as the innings finished on 254-5 off the allotted 45 overs.
A Helen Vincent tea was destroyed by all just before the innings finished due to rain. The big reason the game wasn’t called off was due to how good Helen’s teas are, with Shrewton demanding to travel down to have some of the famous Victoria Sponge.
Ridley opened the bowling with Luke Butson as Shrewton set about chasing a mammoth score. Their 1s skipper opened the batting and got them off to a flyer as they raced to 60 off 9 overs, with the opener getting to 50 in no time. Ridley had the dangerous batter removed, with the ball landing in the safe hands of Booth at mid-off.
Ridley, full of confidence after the wicket, removed their number 3 with a direct hit for the second week in a row (Tom Arnold, you owe him 2 beers when he’s 18). We had control of the game at this point. However, 8 wickets were still needed.
Up step Ritesh “Icepack” Ramachandra to bowl incredible line and length as he darted the ball at off stump as Eckton and Arnold took great catches off him. Ben Chandler bowled a solitary over, which included a wicket despite going for a few runs which brought flashbacks of Sparsholt in the VKO a few years ago.
Some comical run outs including a direct hit from Plenty of Fish at slip had Shrewton struggling at 100-9 with Ramachandra needing one more for a 5 wicket haul. Icepack rearranged the number 11s stumps to finish with a thoroughly deserved 5-16 off 7 overs as the 2s won by 145 runs in a max point victory.
The win was a real team performance with everyone chipping in to help win the game!
See the full scorecard here: https://bramshaw.play-cricket.com/website/results/6090824
A big thanks to JB for scoring in horrific weather conditions and amazing work from Kevin to get the ground fit to play with many games in Hampshire off.
The 2s have no game next week due to Wellow men’s folding again.