Mount CC President - Ged Williams
Mount CC Sponsor – The Indian Chefs, 109 Hamlet Court Road, Westcliff-on-Sea.

It is a pleasure to write this report after such a good game in hot sunshine.

The President’s XI this year was mainly made of up Mount players other than allrounder Liam Nugent from Southend & EMT. It was superb to be able to call on Matt Elmer also a Southend & EMT player but equally a Mountie. Paul McKeon (Pmac) was back playing for the Mount, on top of his duties as captain of a Basildon & Pitsea Saturday league team. It was also brilliant to welcome back father and son combination of Richard and William Green. Thank you also to Steve Johnson and Ilan Frankel for batting later in the order to allow for the two, father and son combinations to bat 1 to 4.

A special mention should also be made to Toby Duffin for going out of his way and providing a beautifully finished, flat and straw coloured wicket that produced a fine game with over 400 runs scored in 70 overs. Thank you to Stewart for umpiring 70 overs on such a hot afternoon and assisting before and after the match. Thanks to Bill Foley for keeping an eye on the match finances. Thanks to Steve Johnson the Mount skipper who’s support from start to finish was vital.

Thank you also to Vijay and his team of London Strikers, some of who are making the transition from tennis ball cricket to hard ball cricket and are blessed with youth and natural talent. They are a friendly bunch of cricketers and pleasure to play against. Following afternoon tea the Strikers presented the Mount CC with a London Strikers cap set in a frame which was gratefully received by the President. It should be mentioned that Vijay has had a big part in keeping the Mount CC playing over recent seasons, as cricketers become harder to find and the Mount team ages and injuries add up.

The day started with the toss of a US dollar (Matt Elmer randomly pulled it out of his pocket) with Vijay calling heads and the President winning the toss and electing to bat. The President opened the batting with Jonny Williams (age 13), and he was quick to take a bye and get Jonny on strike. Jonny unfortunately missed a straight one for a second ball duck and trudged off to be replaced by his cousin Will Green. Will and the President played and missed a few, especially Will, but settled in and added 98 for the second wicket. Will is a stylish left hander and plays a similar straight bat to his Dad and can hit 360 degrees. Will met his demise on 41 and was replaced by his Dad, who despite a dodgy back also showcased his skill and helped moved the score on to 131 before the President was removed for 68, courtesy of the Mount’s own Vijay, playing for the Strikers. Rich was then joined by Matt Elmer who added a valuable 24 while Rich was out to Vijay for 23. Ilan coming in late in the innings didn’t disappoint the spectators with his usual clean hitting and was joined by Mount skipper Steve Johnson, another clean hitter with a quick 8 who was quickly replaced by Paul Offord who supported Ilan’s handy 25 to finish off the President’s XI 35 over innings on 221. From the London Strikers their opening bowler Akshay was particularly dangerous and his 1 for 20 off six overs reflected the respect he was given. The Strikers used 8 bowlers and shared the wickets around and typically Vijay chimed in with his usual couple. A special mention to the very capable Nishad, the Strikers keeper who has played for the Mount, and the tidy job he did.

A thank you now to a collection of Southend & EMT players who arrived halfway through the first innings to support Matt Elmer and Liam Nugent. They went on to assist with umpiring, keep the scorebook, and update the scoreboard. We are really grateful for that but it doesn’t mean we’ll hold anything back next time we play them. 😊

At 3pm it was afternoon tea time and thank you to Suzie, Lucy and Kate Williams and Eleanor Johnson for the homemade cakes, tea and soft drinks. The kitchen at home looked a bomb site during the making on Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning but all worth it.

The Strikers innings began around 15.45 with the Mount bowling attack led by the experienced but spry Mike Walsh, and the youthful but very stiff Pmac who to his credit had played 100 overs on Saturday. Ilan kept wicket in his normal tidy manner. Pmac nabbed Vijay’s wicket early on despite the difficulty of delivering the first 3 balls or so down to the other end, while Mike toiled away for 4 overs beating the bat with no reward. The President decided to give the bowlers a spell after 4 overs each, to save Mike for later in the innings and to save Pmac who had worked up a mighty sweat from needing the Mount portable defibrillator. Liam Nugent our guest player took over and bowled a tidy and rewarding spell of left arm duckers, bagging 2 wickets, while Paul Offord charging in as ever finally removed the Strikers opener Adil for 23 runs. It is about this point that we began to realise that the Strikers have batsmen 1 to 11 and our score of 221 could be under threat. Nevertheless the Mount youth policy was put into action with cousins Will Green and Jonny Williams called into action. Unfortunately Will’s dodgy shoulder didn’t react well to being turned over so his uncle the President finished off the over and nobbled Arkshay who had been going well for his 27. Jonny proceeded to bowl 5 overs with his swinging left armers, and shrugged off a bit of tap to clean bowl Farhad 4 and trap V. Arksun 15 in front. Matt Elmer was brought into the bowling attack to confuse the Strikers with his unorthodox deliveries but that experiment began to look a bit risky after 2 overs and with the Mount total in site. Note to readers I think I have the order of the bowling a bit mixed up now but if you knew how hot it was out there you would understand my confusion. The Mount opening bowling pair were called upon to steady the ship with Mike Walsh trapping Nishad in front for a punishing 40 and Pmac having Shaz, the Strikers no. 10 caught at midwicket for 32. So come the last over the Strikers had 208 with 9 wickets down. The President looked around and saw some very sweaty, broken Mounties and with the 4 leading bowlers all having bowled their maximum. So in desperation he decided to take this one for his team mates and with the penultimate ball of the match bowled Niyaz for 19, the Strikers all out for 213 and the winning of the match.

Following the game a superb curry was put on by the Indian Chefs, and plenty of lager and soft drinks was used to replace fluid lost on this hot Sunday afternoon.

Firstly apologies for the radio silence.

A quick update on the current season as it progresses.

We have played 3 games currently our first game was against Canewdon in a hastily re arranged change of venue as the pitch at Alleyn Court was unable to be prepared due to rain on the friday prior to the match. Canewdon thankfully had a pitch available so we managed to get a game in.

The outfield was being cut when we arrived so with all the grass cuttings this was probably going to be a low scoring game. I won the toss and elected to bat in our 35 overs we managed to muster a total of 169-8 with M. Giri 69 and ex president S. Jackson 33 being the notable scorers. In reply we managed to restrict Canewdon to 143ao with wickets from Vijay (3-18), Offord (2-15) & Hare (2-51) so a win by 26 runs.

Our next fixture against Southend EMTCC is always a tough fixture and so it proved with Southend winning the toss and electing to bat they managed to post a total of 223-8 which was a good performance considering they had 6 players that had been in the first team on the Saturday. Top wicket taker being M Walsh (4-28).

In reply we could unfortunately only muster 113ao and although the top order started well enough the last 7 batsmen only managed a total of 8 runs. A very impressive collapse as collapses go. The top batsmen being Vijay (41) and Ilan (29) so a loss by 110 runs.

Our most recent fixture was against Great Canfield who normally score a fair few against us. With traffic being bad the start of the game was delayed but when we did start Canfield won the toss and elected to field. In our 35 overs we managed to score an impressive total of 282-3 with Vijay (86 retired), Johnson (82), Hemu (61) and S Jackson (32no). In reply the Canfield opening batsmen started well enough but when they were dispatched we managed to clear through the rest of the order bowling them out for 102. Wickets were shared around with 2 each from Arjun V, Arjun K, Libin and Niyaz. Special mention must go to the presidents son Jonny who made his Mount debut bowling 5 overs one maiden for 9 runs. We won the game by 180 runs.

Our next fixture is this coming Sunday 11th June. This is the Presidents XI v London Strikers XI. Start time is 12:30 with a selection of cake and fruit available at tea and after the game we have Indian Chefs (our sponsors) supplying a curry. If anyone wishes to attend and support the club please let me know. There is a charge £20 Adults Teenagers £10 Children under 12 free with one full paying adult otherwise £10.

Please let me know if you can attend as caterers need to know numbers. Payments in advance would be helpful.

I will try and post a bit more now that I have worked out how to use my son's laptop as my computer died.