A first meeting with WPP at Puttenham

Arranged by Graeme Thomson, who is a member of both clubs, this was the first time WPP and LNZCC had played each other. WPPs side was skippered by Alan Luff, who made us welcome with a cup of tea and sandwiches on arrival and included John Maynard of West Indies fame (almost but not quite a test player) and a New Zealander named Elliot Jaffe, from Auckland.

LNZCC’s side was notable for debuts by Richard Lambie; Hamish Laing; Dylan Kirschberg and Sunny Nathu, and for the return of Ben Fulton to LNZ after playing against us for HAC the week before.

Walsh won the toss and elected to field in a 45-over match. As both teams had 12, we agreed to field and bat 12 - an early sign that WPP is our kind of club. Dickie Coury took the keeping gloves for the first half of the game with Richard Lambie on point for the second. Scott Baldwin immediately got into his work down the hill and Dylan Kirschberg opened at the other end. A very tight spell of bowling from both players, backed up by some very good fielding meant WPP had scored only 28-odd runs off 12 overs when Scottie and Dylan handed the ball over to first change bowlers Walsh and Hamish Laing. Both openers had been very unlucky not to pick up wickets from edges and a very good LBW shout which was turned down after quite a long ponder by Umpire Maynard.

Breakthroughs followed with Walsh bowling WPPs opener with the first ball of his second over and Laing doing the same in his 3rd

. Laing bowled well in his first spell for the club and then changed to one over from Ben Fulton while Walsh kept going from the western end. Drinks were taken with WPP on 91-2 from 24. Peter Bellamy replaced Fulton at the eastern end and snaffled two wickets in his spell. A great catch from Baldwin saw Walsh pick up his second then a third with a caught behind by Richard Lambie in the same over, before picking up a fourth in his penultimate over with an LBW. Gerard finished his straight- through spell of 9 overs with figures of 38-4 and handed over to Ben Fulton, who changed ends. The run rate had started to climb a little higher with some clean hitting by WPPs Park (South Africa) and our very own Elliot Jaffe. The grand scheme was to slow WPP down again to about 220 by bringing Scottie and Dylan back to close out the last 6 overs of the innings. Bellamy finished his spell and passed the ball to John Dennis for an over, which became two and then following a hostile takeover bid, it appeared JD was now a death bowler! Dylan came on and also picked up his first wicket for the club which would have been two had the Chairman held onto one above his head on the long off boundary (which went for six.) WPP’s innings closed in the 45th over with 239 on the board. The partnership of 70 by Jaffe (did we mention he’s from Auckland) and Mannick was to prove rather important. It should be mentioned that one of the more challenging aspects of sweeping on the nearside boundary was the delicious smell of the BBQ lunch that was being prepared, and the slow drip of ice melting on the bottles of rose and pinot grigio in the marquee. All the debutants had got involved with debut wickets to Laing and Kirschberg, a catch behind to Lambie and some great out fielding by Khanbai and Laing.

Lunch. Suffice to say, it was superb. Salmon, beef, lamb, burgers and an array of salads with wine to accompany it. With much encouragement from WPP, several LNZ players went in for seconds just as the banoffee pie, chocolate tart and pavlova came around the corner. I think fourths or perhaps fifths might have been the record on the day. Delicious. Absolutely delicious.

LNZ opened with Nick Ratcliffe and Lambie, facing Maynard from up the hill and our own Jaffe from the other end. Suffice to say, both can bowl. Accurately. Quite fast too. Nick let three go watchfully past the bat, got a run off the fourth and then Jaffe skittled Lambie with an absolute peach first up. Nick saw off Maynard’s first over and then Sunny got off the mark. Nick was facing Jaffe but not for long. LBW. Khanbai went out next and came back straight away having edged the first ball he faced. Two first-ball ducks and Jaffe the Kiwi on a hat-trick. Against us. Also Kiwis. Hamish Laing was next in and he managed the hat-trick ball. He and Sunny saw off some more deadly accurate bowling by Maynard and Jaffe before those two went off to cool their jets and Hester and Park came on. Park was no slouch either. Sunny and Hamish put on a reasonable dig before Laing was bowled by WPPs Hester with the score now at 50-4 off 15 overs. Kirschberg replaced Laing at the crease and looked sharpish in scoring a decent 4 (of 6 runs) before missing a straight one from Park, then Nathu did the same and was out for 37. Ben Fulton and Scottie Baldwin came together and put on 20 runs (including a big 6) before Scottie was out LBW. Bellamy came and went quickly without troubling the scorers (caught by Hester off WPP skipper Luff) followed by Dickie Coury who put on 13 while Ben collected runs patiently at the other end. JD replaced Coury and was in turn out in Arora’s 8th over. LNZ were 137 for 10 in the 30th over and Jaffe was back into the attack. Walsh went to the wicket, blazed a big six off Arora and then was undone by Jaffe’s pace which left Ben on 51 n.o off 53 balls.

The innings closed with the fall of the 11th wicket with LNZ 104 runs short. A well-deserved win to WPP.

Given some of the recent totals LNZ have seen put up by the opposition, restricting WPP to 239 runs was a great bowling and fielding effort. However, WPP’s bowlers were too good on the day and Alan Luff juggled his resources very well. Elliot Jaffe knocked the top off the order (3 wickets down for two runs in the 3rd over is hard to come back from!) and finished with 26-4 off 6.5 overs. Maynard gave away only 10 runs off 5 overs and the other bowlers each broke partnerships just as they formed.

For our point of view, it was great to see the debutants all make an impact and start their LNZCC careers with a mark in the catches, wickets taken or runs scored columns. We hope we’ll see a lot more of Richard, Dylan, Hamish and Sunny. Thanks to everyone in the side who made the effort to get to the game. I think you’ll agree it was worth it despite the on- field outcome.

Both teams then enjoyed a beer in the sun. We didn’t award Man of the Match but it would have been between Ben for his batting and Gerard for his bowling (Ed’s note: That’s me talking in the third person there.) Special mention to Scott Baldwin who only went for 8 runs off his 6 overs.

Puttenham is a lovely ground, bordered by a golf course on the southern side and WPPs hospitality was first class. This is a fixture we all thoroughly enjoyed and we’d like to add it to the calendar on a permanent basis. Good luck and thanks very much to WPPs skipper Alan Luff for his role in organising the match. We wish WPP all the best for the rest of the season.

NB: The WPP innings and our fielding are as below; the iPad stats package is our batting (that’s pronounced ‘walking out to the wicket; trudging back from the wicket’ in this case). For most of us. Not all of us. Well batted Ben and Sunny and Hamish.