Player Profile #17: Ali Shah

If running twos is the game then Ali Shah is not the name.

Offley and local rivals Lilley seem to have some sort of time share arrangement with Ali - in 2021 he made his highest score of the season at Offley in Lilley colours.

At a club where the majority of fielders have the girth to fill two fielding positions, and where the slip cordon of Munt, Barker and Tattersall once caused a solar eclipse, Ali is often deployed as a sort of Great Barrier Reef at short midwicket.

Like the Great Barrier Reef Ali doesn't catch much either, often preferring to deploy a boot. In fairness he has snaffled four catches in his Offley career.

Ali's batting, an assortment of biffs and blocks, is based around leisurely singles and the occasional boundary.

It is definitely not designed for pushing twos and he likes to amble between the wickets like a contented gardener keen to smell the enchanted roses in the garden of life.

Despite a career-best of 75*, Ali's average continues to hover fractionally below 15, a statistic that doesn't quite back up his conviction that he should be batting in the top four every week.

Then again, considering the shortcomings of some of his colleagues he may have a point.

Earlier in the season during the narrow 138-run defeat at Shenley, it was not Shenley opener Harold Shipman who caught the eye with 99, or the other Shenley opener who made 110, it was Ali's run-an-over 33 that made people sit up and take note.

Bowling is his strongest suit, albeit one where he has proved that it is possible for a man with a two-step run up to bowl no balls.

Stepping up to the crease with his cap on his head, Ali fires down the darts and arrows that have helped him claim over 40 wickets for Offley.

He bagged his first five-wicket haul for the club earlier this season and is firmly established as one of Captain Dan's go-to bowlers in the quest for Saracens League relegation.

Did You Know: Ali Shah is an anagram of Ail Hash

Comments

BOAT AID

It's not a secret. Everybody knows. League runs have been hard for Scott Boatwright to come by this season. Seven innings. 18 runs. Top score 6 (Before Dan ran him out - to be fair he did say he was going to get runs that day). Average 2.57. It's been hard going. But you can help. Because in 2021 it's not about orphans, or the homeless, or the starving, or about saving the rain forests. It's about Boat Aid. If everyone can find it in their hearts to pledge just one run to the cause we can really make a difference. Umpires - if the ball hits Boaty on the pads and the batsmen go through for a single, don't signal leg byes. Give that run to Boat Aid. Scorers - if there's a bye or even a wide, don't be so quick to mark it down in the extras. Can you not find a way to add it to Scott's tally to help him reach his goal of 100 league runs this season? Fellow batters - when batting with Boaty, can you not push for that second run to boost the Boat Aid total?

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Cool. Calm. Collected. Not three words you generally associate with Offley's Mr Angry, Josh Hook. Well, maybe collected because he does like to be picked up whenever possible. The Boy With The Shit Tattoo came through the youth ranks under the expert tutelage of Darren Lunney and has been scoring runs for the Offley first team for over a decade. Hook has now racked up over 6000 runs to rank fifth in the all-time standings and in a team littered with fading stars, has-beens and never-will-bes, he is invariably the candidate most likely to get to 20. Despite not owning a bat - something not generally associated with most leading batsmen - Hook's determination and idiosyncratic technique have helped him score four centuries - he is one of the club';s youngest-ever centurions alongside Mark Tattersall - while he has also added 30 half-centuries. Hook currently has a timeshare arrangement with Lunney where he borrows his mentor's bat and holds him responsible for any fai

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