Leading up to this, everyone was speculating as to whether the game would actually happen as there were a series of rain fronts coming in from the west one after another all week. In the final 24 hours it looked like the morning would be OK and the early part of the afternoon, but then it was scheduled to go down hill and rain. That's what happened...
I was there first and joined by a few others and we dragged the ropes in place and had a look at the wicket. Very wet and covered in worm casts. When Michael Gray showed up he got out the heavy roller and rolled the wicket for 5 minutes.
We won the toss I think and decided to bowl? I over-heard that they'd organised their batting order by basically picking the name out of a hat. Possibly not the best idea. Both teams agreed, because of the potential for heavy rain in the afternoon to reduce the game to 30 overs. We'd also bowl from one end for 15 and the swap ends to speed up the game. Teas would also be truncated and no longer than 15 mins.
We ran through the first six wickets really quickly with Krishna taking 2, Tony 3 and me 2. But then they dug in and started to play with more conviction and tactics. The Aussie bloke seemed to orchestrate a plan whereby the looked to run quick singles and it worked. Even then when another wicket went down they kept putting us under pressure using the same tactic and they combined this with hitting the bad balls for 4's, 3's and 2's but they accumulated a lot of singles.
The wicket being so wet didn't offer much by way of turn, apparently if you were bowing from the main road end, it was tougher and no-one bowling from that end took wickets from our team and I don't recall many from the oppo. Tony bowled his usual stuff with Krishna. Krishna took a good 'un with a slow off-cutter and his other was regulation fast. Tony's were all catches, but he had some put down as did Sri. My two were a one- handed casual catch in the covers from Ali Abbas and ball chopped onto the stumps playing a widish one outside the off-stump.
I bowled OK, not particularly well. I bowled a couple of leg-breaks in the first over to see if there was any turn and there wasn't that much and I got the line wrong - outside of leg-stump, but got away with it. Over the 6 overs I must have bowled 75% top-spinners, most of these were too full and were hit through the off-side and were fielded well by Koush for the most part. My spell seemed to be over in a flash because we were all bowling from the same end. I came away with 6-1-22-2 at 3.66 an over I'm happy with that. Kirby bowled well for no wickets and Sri came away with no wickets as well, but had 3 chances not grabbed, one definitley should have been caught, but Ali went for the catch with one hand when he could have easily used two and increased the chance of keeping hold of it exponentially and ended up dropping it. Sri wasn't best pleased.
They ended up with 138 off their innings and we all came off for tea and pretty much within the 15 mins allocated for tea, the weather changed and it started to drizzle. It then pretty much rained for the entirety of our innings - ocassionally stopping for a few minutes, but 85% of the time light drizzle. It looked pretty miserable being in the field and I was ready for either side to say 'Let's call this off', but they didn't. Dan Gray's Dad (Michael) turned up at around 3.30-4.00 pm having been home and said he expected us to have given up the game and was surprised we were still playing.
As I was scoring I wasn't really taking a lot of notice of the run of play. But then there was a flurry of wickets and I noticed Krishna and Sri were padded up and I was after Sri. Then Krishna was walking out to the middle to Join Dan who was nearing the point where he'd have to retire. Then on checking the score I realised the dynamics of the game had changed, it was getting a bit tight... In fact it was nearing squeeky bum time!
I got changed quickly handing the scoring over to Michael Gray and came out to find that a couple of more overs had been eaten up and Krishna was out there having replaced Amrit. The scoreboard in the meantime had hardly moved, neither he or Dan were able to pierce the circle and Krishna was bowled having made no impact. Sri made his way out and more of the same and another couple of overs were soaked up for next to nothing with Dan now needing one run before he was forced to retire. I wanted to shout out... 'Dan - this last ball needs to go for 6 or 4'!
Dan hit a single and was called in, there were about 9 balls left as I walked out and we needed about 6 off of the 9 balls. I can't work out what happened at the end, but it ended up with 1 over left and 5 needed. The bowler Wallace was a faster bowler with 2 wickets already. Sri, had the most slippery shoes ever - no spikes... "Normally I have spikes in my bag, they've been in there all summer and this is the first time I've needed them and I left them at home". Things were stacked against us, up till this point in Sri's last 12 balls, he'd laid the bat on it 5 times.
Wallace ran in from the Road end and Sri out of nowhere hit the ball back past the bowler, I'd walked in with the bowlers run up and was down Sri's end in double quick time coming back with Sri sliding around like a bloke on ice, he managed to get back for two and on strike easily looking across to the clubhouse expecting a signal for four, the ball was picked up in a resigned manner as though it had gone for four, but no-one signalled... just 2.
The bowler ran in again - same approach, but Sri slipped and ended up without his bat mid-way down the wicket on his arse covered in mud, the throw came if to execute the run-out, but in the panic they messed it up and Sri got back to his ground. Three needed - four balls left.
Sri hits the ball and I scamper through for a single. So I'm on strike, so we're now in trouble... The bowler runs in, the ball wizzes past massively wide and I have a swing that seems to be well short of the ball... I look to Brian... Nothing. Sri looks back at me in dismay. I think just get on with it and ready for the next ball. 2 balls left.
Bowler runs in, I slash at it and make contact - the ball not hit hard finds a gap and we run through to win the game with only 1 ball left of the game. A good win and a good game played in the right spirit in pretty awful conditions. Everyone seemed to agree and a great way to finish the season.
No comments:
Post a Comment