Southgate began their league season with a 3 wicket defeat away to West Harrow, but there were plenty of positives to take from the performance.
Captain James Dangerfield won the toss and opted to bat on a hot day in West London. Hugh Hyslop and Sunny Kanuparthi opened the batting and made the most of the powerplay, before the latter was bowled by a yorker. Max Joseph fell shortly afterwards to a ball that misbehaved off a length, but he was replaced by Christian McLoughlin and he and Hugh built a strong partnership together.
Christian fell around the drinks break and was replaced by Nik Ravikrishnan who batted positively from the off. Nik frequently found the boundary and his aggression enabled Hugh to steadily accumulate at the other end. Nik passed 50 and was bowled the next ball, but had advanced Southgate to a strong position. Hugh continued and brought up his hundred on his Middlesex League debut, a fabulous knock that combined sparkling strokeplay with intelligence and nous, moving up and down the gears to suit the game situation. Southgate finished on 242/8 from their 45 overs, a score they were confident in defending.
The second innings got off to a great start with debutant Dan Bint bowling a heavy ball and looking threatening, while Will McLoughlin bowled tidily, clean bowling one of the home team’s openers in his first spell. At this stage things looked very much in Southgate’s favour – by the end of the powerplay, West Harrow had scored at little more than 3 an over.
However a combination of enterprising stroke play from the West Harrow batters, ill discipline from Southgate’s change bowlers and some under par fielding saw the home side wrestle their way back into the game. Wickets fell at regular intervals but we were unable to stem the flow of boundaries and were unlucky at times with miscued balls falling agonisingly between fielders and a decision or two that could’ve gone our way.
Ultimately, West Harrow squeaked home, but this was unlike many of last season’s defeats where at times we felt out gunned. Here we left feeling as though we absolutely should have won, something we’ll aim to put right in gameweek 2.
Max Joseph
(without the assistance of a scorecard due to technical difficulties)