Where does the balance lie between individual brilliance and the team ethic? The old basketball line about “there is no ‘I’ in ‘team’ “ (responses: “but there is in ‘win’”, and “but there is a ‘me’”) is applicable to cricket as to many team sports. Last week’s saga of Wayne Rooney underlined again the value of the individual within the team in football, and yet perhaps cricket – with its direct momentary confrontation between two individuals – presents this question in its starkest light.

Yesterday on the lush Megi-ignored Sixes-reduced KCC pitch we saw a Saracens team playing at full throttle, with its individual components also at maximum RPM. Gap Ramblers won the toss, chose to bat, and found themselves 4-3 after three overs. Chris McAnulty and Tim Parkinson opened the bowling for Saracens, and in those three overs there was a sharp chance for Waqar Dawood at cover – snaffled – a looping catch to Roshan Dadlani at mid-on – pouched – and a couple of play-and-misses before an off-stump went rocking back.

Gap Ramblers had a number of partnerships as they tried to recover from their calamitous start, yet they were never able to regain the initiative as the classically tight middle overs bowled by Ravi Sujanani and Peter Wooden tightened Saracens’ grip “like a boa constrictor” (image courtesy of Chris McAnulty).  Shahn Malik took the catch of the season at first slip, wrong-footed and one-handed; Zubair Nizami took two back-to-back steeplers at mid-on, and then fizzed in a return to run out the non-striker who was limping and rambling his way towards wicketkeeper Robin Gill. Spin twins Azeem Ebrahim and Waqar Dawood followed the Sujanani-Wooden asphyxiation, maintaining relentless pressure on the Ramblers, with Dawood taking the final Ramblers’ wicket with a sharp C&B in the 33rd over: Ramblers all out for 128.

What genuinely impressed the Saracens’ captain was the unspectacular yet critical teamwork in the backing-up of throws, the double-chasing of balls in the outfield, the constant supportive urging-on of the whole team. We have played like this all season - building and maintaining pressure on the opposition - and then taking the pressure-induced chances of run-outs (two yesterday) and catches.

The run chase started with some swashbuckling stuff by Sujanani – 12 coming off the first over – and some Athertonian elegance from the stylish Shahnawaz Malik. A partnership is what it says, and by the time Shahn was superbly taken at gully, over 60 were on the board in quick time. Enter Wooden. I begin to write “we can’t all play a punched straight-drive like Peter Wooden”, but in honesty, I don’t know anyone who can. Two of those had the spectators purring with delight, really crisp beautiful shots, reminiscent of Marcus Trescothick, Edgbaston, 2005 (and what higher compliment can be paid?). Ravi fell just short of his 50, and immediately lamented not being able to see his innings through to the end of the chase – pure class. Louis Chan received an lbw decision in the closing stages, leaving Chris McAnulty just time to blast a massive six over the KCC restaurants. Peter Wooden finished things off in style with his own clanging six into the sightscreen off the last ball of the 17th over.

This was a Saracens’ performance of the highest quality, of which it was a privilege to be part: a tight and cohesive team effort, complemented and enhanced by individual brilliance.

Saracens were: Ravi Sujanani, Shahn Malik, Peter Wooden, Louis Chan, Chris McAnulty, Waqar Dawood, Roshan Dadlani, Tim Parkinson (c), Zubair Nizami, Azeem Ebrahim, Rob Gill (wk)  

What a difference a day makes: Oct 1, Saracens win an attritional duel, scoring 119 and bowling out Mainlanders for 85; Oct 2, Saracens lose by 7 runs in a 560 run-fest at Po Kong Village Road. That’s right: chasing 284 to win, Saracens fell heroically but tragically 7 runs short.
 
Where does the fault lie in a game like this? For want of a couple more bravura smashes over the top, we would be celebrating the win of all wins. The same goes for bowling eight fewer wides, two fewer long-hops, and so the list goes on.
 
For various operational and unavoidable reasons, but disappointingly, we could not begin the game with 11 players. On losing the toss, therefore, we were unsurprisingly asked to field. This didn’t stop Ravi Sujanani, who took a smart C&B with his third ball. It didn’t affect young debutante Nick Chelleri, who came on breathing fire and zipped a few snorters past the nose of the Pakistan Club top order. Saracens grit was in evidence as he pulled up before delivering the penultimate ball of his spell, vomited copiously onto the Po Kong astroturf outfield, took a deep breath, and pounded in for a last dot ball: grit personified.
 
Pakistan Club have generally been rated the number one Saturday outfit and they soon had us toiling. They smashed the Saracens attack around, although we did bowl too many loose deliveries in our 35 overs. When up against this kind of batting we do need to be more disciplined in bowling to our fields; we were left facing a target of 284 despite sterling work in the field, never stopping chasing but, overall, doing more chasing than should have been the case.

Many sides would have rolled over facing that sort of monumental target. Not this side. We play as a team, but it is not invidious to point out the incredible talent we have in a player like Peter Wooden. He scored 148 runs, batting from ball 1 to over 33, and flayed the Pakistan attack all over the New Territories. In his penultimate over, he smashed 23 runs, and we were left needing an eminently gettable 12 from the last over of the innings.
 
Peter had been superbly aided by Ravi Sujanani, who carried more than his share of the cricketing burden for the second time in two days. Ravi and Peter put on an immense opening stand of more than 150, setting the stage for the rest of the Saracens to chip in. Shahn Malik showed his class on debut, and key contributions down the order came from Waqar Dawood, Chris McAnulty, and Yogesh Mahtani.
 
Ultimately, we fell short. The post-match inquest was painful for the nearness of the triumph, and we should be proud of how we fought. The other Saturday sides will recognize that this Saracens unit can chase any target, will not wilt, and when bowling with slightly more discipline, will terrorise all batting lineups.
 
Saracens were: Peter Wooden, Ravi Sujananai, Shahn Malik, Nadeem Siddiqui, Roshan Dadlani, Waqar Dawood, Chris McAnulty, Yogesh Mahtani, Tim Parkinson (c), Rob Gill (wk), Nick Chelleri

The match started inauspiciously: we were locked outside the gates of Tin Kwong Recreational Ground until 1.03pm; Saracens on one side of Mission Road, Mainlanders on the other. The two teams eyed each other with mutual respect and some wariness. At 12.50pm the new Saracens captain went over to Mainlanders, introductions were performed, and the toss was effected, the coin rolling perilously towards a grate in the road, but eventually settling the correct side up, from a Saracens point of view. We chose to bat.
 
To say the outfield was lush is understating it: vegetation and other herbaceous matter were abundant, and from the outset even the sweetest shot along the deck would struggle to reach three-quarters of the way to the boundary. Wooden and Collins kicked things off, and the astro wicket immediately showed uneven bounce and pace. Wooden fell C&B to a ball that stopped on him, and Collins – after some trademark bludgeonry – was caught in the deep. Enter Ravi Sujanani.
 
Ravi scored 44 runs, sincerely worth more than a century on any other ground. As Saracens fell around him, he was steadfast and resolute, punching shots around the wicket with class and elegance. Dawood, Parkinson, McAnulty, Nizami added a handful of runs in brief stays at the crease; Ravi stood firm and held us all together. Robin Gill came in at 8, and his experience showed as he shepherded the tail after Ravi’s eventual demise. Together with Chan, Ebrahim, and new vice-captain Kunal Parwani, Rob helped us inch towards 119 in our 35 overs (a large chunk of that coming from extras, it has to be said).

Mainlanders started like a house on fire; but we knew they possessed an enormous threat in captain Najeeb. He smashed Parwani and Dawood around, and Mainlanders racked up 40 without loss after 7 overs – the lush outfield matters not if you are going to dump it out of the ground…
 
The single element that most impressed the captain was the calm resolve of this Saracens outfit. We knew Mainlanders had the Hong Kong captain, we knew he alone could win them the match, but we stuck to our own game and it paid off. In Kunal’s final determined over, he induced Najeeb’s leading edge and the chance was snaffled by Wooden at short cover; the height he threw the ball in celebration revealing the importance of the wicket.
 
Despite being somewhat off-colour, McAnulty had grittily toiled through three overs when he and Parwani were replaced by the spin twins of Wooden and Sujanani. There followed sixteen overs that were a cricketing form of strangulation: increasing and relentless asphyxiating pressure on Mainlanders. Their runs dried up, and wickets came with frequency: a catch from silly mid-off Parkinson, a fine athletic pouch from Dawood, an amazing C&B from Sujanani (a full-length dive for a one-handed super-grab), a calm pluck-from-the-skies effort from “extreme” Azeem Ebrahim, and a classy stumping from Gill (plus one cruelly denied by the lack of referral ability at Mission Road).
 
Saracens kept pressing all the time, and at the end of the twins’ spell, only three wickets remained to be taken, with Mainlanders needing 35 off 9 overs. Ebrahim, after just taking his catch, came on to replace the unplayable Wooden, and proved just as unplayable in his single over: a first-ball stumping as he lured a young Mainlander out of his crease, then a fifth-ball LBW. 1 over, 2 wickets, 0 runs. Dawood had replaced Sujanani, and skittled the last man in the next over.

Saracens in the field were outstanding. Under the cosh from the outset, there was no wilting, no petulance at luck or decisions not going our way - just utter grit and resolution. A magnificent performance. Gill was calm brilliance behind the stumps; Wooden was completely bamboozling with his left-arm tweak, but man of the match – for both his batting and bowling – was Ravi Sujanani.

Saracens were: Peter Wooden, Matt Collins, Ravi Sujanani, Waqar Dawood, Tim Parkinson (c), Chris McAnulty, Zubair Nizami, Rob Gill (wk), Louis Chan, Azeem Ebrahim, Kunal Parwani.