Heligoland Pilgrims Cricket Club

May the four be with you

It’s no exaggeration that Bipin, captaining the Pilgrims’ first game on turf on the Australia tour, seemed to be getting the help of extra powers. Maybe for him, an absolute gun with ball and bat in hand, it was just another day of the week.

To be fair, it was a glorious Tuesday. After a trip the day before to Rottnest Island, with temperatures in the high 30s, the weather was a tad kinder. At the UWA Sports Park, in Perth’s western suburbs, 31 degrees with a light sea breeze felt like a relief. The Pilgrims, clad today in warm gold tour shirts, met in the late morning with their opponents, a University CC XI, who ranged from young and talented to slightly older and talented.

The 30-over match began with the Pilgrims fielding. They all looked a bit sluggish, still recovering from Sunday’s epic win in epic heat against Swanbourne, capped by an epic thunderstorm. But Bipin had a spring in his step and glue on his hands. He held four sparkling catches at different points of the massive field. And this set the standard for a collective fielding effort that was close to the Pilgrims’ best. Su took a good catch in the outfield, Stewart clutched one in his massive left mitt at short cover, Cam juggled a hot one behind the stumps and Jasveer had a timely direct hit runout of Damien, who was threatening to hit every second ball into the next suburb.

But if Bipin’s catching force wasn’t enough, he came back for a magical second spell and nabbed four wickets. This impressive return helped to restrict the University CC XI to 143 all out, off 27.2 overs. Young talents Vivaan (36) and Harry (35) lead the batting, while Damien tonked 26, barely breaking a sweat.

It seemed a gettable target, at a little under five-an-over. Abhik started well, including a lovely clip over deep-square for six, but was caught at short fine leg. David nicked one to slip. Su was tidily caught and bowled. Runs were hard to score on the sticky wicket, and all the spinners were proving a handful on the tricky pitch. For a while, Jasveer and Cam steadied to the ship, as they ran hard and started to find the boundary. This was undone by a rash shot from Cam (24), spooning a ball to cover.

Jasveer (28) soldiered on, but wickets continued to fall, including his, while the required-run-rate rose. An entertaining cameo from Mithun (23*) boosted the score, with the Pilgrims ending 25 runs short, nine wickets down. Moritz (0*) was undefeated again, for the third time in a row. Will, Soham and Damien all took two wickets. For his all-round performance, Damien received a copy of Quintus Huntley: Botany (the latest book from your scribe). Harry earned himself a Pilgrims baggy cap.

The hard stuff done, the players sat in the shade and enjoyed various ERDINGER refreshments. The Pilgrims spent little time rueing missed opportunities and instead toasted the wonderful “four and four” performance from their sticky-fingers captain, Bipin.

The Pilgrims extend their gratitude to University CC for hosting this match in such an expansive location, which happens to have four (!) playing fields, including one where the local professional rugby team was training (those guys looked like behemoths, even from a hundred metres away). Thanks also to scorer Paul, and to all the umpires and other scorers. The Pilgrims wish University CC (the reigning WA Cricket 1st grade champions) all the best for the rest of the season.

Heligoland Pilgrims: Bipin (c), Abhik (vc), Ankit, Cam (wk II), David, Devadas, Jasveer, Mithun (wk I), Moritz, Stewart, Su, Johann (12th)

University CC XI: Damien (c), Harry, Hennie, Nick, Soham, Vivaan, Will,

Scorer: Paul

Report: Royce Leville

Photography:

Seconds

Dev had no second thoughts when handing over the captaincy to Cam in the second match of the Pilgrims’ Australia tour. The idea paid off, not least because the visitors were facing Swanbourne CC. This is the family-friendly club in one of Perth’s residential suburbs, for whom Cam has been playing for the last 13 years during the winter months. He knew the opposition so well and made use of altogether 12 Pilgrim’s individual skills in such a competent manner that he led them to an unforgettable victory – by seven runs in the penultimate over.

It could easily have gone the other way. Two overs earlier the home team were only 38 runs away from winning, with 3 wickets in hand. After a fine run-out from Jasveer at deep mid-wicket and Abhik at the stumps, in comes Bipin (3/35) at full force despite 40 degrees Celsius under the scorching sun and mops up 2, the major part of the tail, reducing Swanbourne to their last man with 26 to win off 19 deliveries. Abhik with the ball again tries to smother the runs. Then Bipin bowls the 29th over, gets hit for four, and it looks like Swanbourne will reach their target. But his fourth ball comes off the bat of last man Chris Browne in an arch and Ankit dives at cover to take a fantastic catch, just above the ground. The Pilgrims can hardly believe their luck.

This result had not been on the cards at the beginning. Although the Pilgrims had won the toss and elected to bat, their initial progress was rather slow. After 8 overs they were only on 15/3, and after 15 of their allocated 30 overs, they had already fallen to 49/7, with Bipin’s 13 the highest individual score. Cam (59*) and Jasveer (47), however, had other ideas and together, with some cameo support by Mithun (16) and last man Moritz (0*), they shifted the score into a competitive range of 181/9. Swanbourne’s circumspect captain Paul (3/35) had created most of the damage; Chris B. (4-1-17-1), Shaz (4-0-5-1) and Ben (3-0-5-0) also left remarkably economic impacts, with Chris additionally holding a catch.

Still, the Pilgrims’ bowlers kept Swanbourne’s run-rate down right from the start of their innings. At scores of 68/4 after 15 overs and 77/6 after 16, a win by the visitors did not seem out of the question. Ankit had struck nicely with a catch off his own bowling. Jasveer (3/17) was the pick of the bowlers, with 4 tidy overs and a trio of crucial wickets. Captain Cam added a direct-hit run out from mid-off. At the end of the day, every fielder contributed effectively by saving many runs all over the sizzling field, up to a ball Moritz kept half an inch from the boundary by running over it.

Just after the surprising end of the game, a thunderstorm brought some cooler air onto the ground. The players retreated to the showers and refuelled with seemingly unlimited amounts of ERDINGER Alkoholfrei which their sponsors had kindly shipped around the world. Thanks were expressed, especially to Peter, Paul and Mary (locally aka Lois), the former for having umpired in the almost unbearable heat, the other two for scoring all the runs. The Pilgrims’ man of the match award went to Chris V. for his undefeated 63* – an impressive performance, but not enough on this day when Swanbourne came second.

Heligoland Pilgrims: Cam (c), Abhik, Ankit, Bipin, David, Devadas (vc), Jasveer, Johann, Mithun (wk II), Moritz, Stewart, Su (wk I)

Swanbourne: Paul (c), Andrew H., Andrew N., Ben, Chris B., Chris V., Gregory, Iain, Jamie, Lachlan, Shaz

Scorers: Paul, Lois

Umpires: Peter

Report: Max Minor, Cricket Correspondent

Photography: