Spirits played Colonial in what was originally meant to be 35 overs per side game. Jim lost the toss and so we found ourselves in the field, although this did not faze our skipper as it appeared that we had picked a team brimful of bowling talent. The openers were a father-son combination, Martyn taking the Derelict School End and Zak coming in from the Bus Stop End (Ah, the poetry of those names!).
Martyn initially struggled to find his line so it was left to Zak to show the old man how to do it, Lakshmi taking a nice catch off his bowling in the gully. From the onset it looked like the Colonial batsmen had a bus to catch and were going to eschew defensive shots altogether. Martyn got in on the act in his third over when Jim took a spectacular one handed catch at mid-on. Two overs later a splendid piece of fielding by Sandeep secured a run out that left the Colonials reeling on 35-3. Clearly what they needed was some gritty application from their middle to dig them out of this hole.
And that’s exactly what didn’t happen. Instead they capitulated in spineless fashion, crumbling from 35-3 to 65-9 and then 81 all out. Martyn clean bowled one batsmen, Lakshmi took three and Jamie proved what a good acquisition he is for the club by bowling three tight overs that yielded 2-7; the second of those was a great catch by Jim, who covered a lot of ground to snaffle the ball at mid-wicket. And even I got in on the act, having their last batsmen stumped by Vishal. All in all a feeble effort from the Colonials, who only lasted 18 overs and were very slapdash in their approach.
Jim and Ravi opened the batting and initially had to face a few probing overs with the ball moving around quite a bit. Ravi struck a nice four before being clean bowled by one that stayed low, but Jim was progressing in doughty style and our cause was helped by the number of wides they bowled (23 in all!). Sandeep struck a quick ten before being caught which brought Tushar in to hit the winning runs, Jim finishing on 29 not out. All in all a facile win and Colonials were embarrassed to suggest a quick 12 over rematch.
This time Sandeep skippered and boldly suggested that a total of between 100 and 110 would be in order. This looked a tad optimistic about twenty minutes later when Spirits had crumbled to 19-6 in the fifth over! This brought together Martyn and Ravi (who had changed and showered after the first game and had to get back into his whites; something he has yet to be fined for!) and they batted with aplomb. Martyn played some great shots in an innings of 40 not out and Ravi made 33 off nineteen balls before being caught and bowled. Their seventh wicket partnership put on 77 and allowed us to reach 96-7 off our 12 overs.
At least Colonials made a better fist of this time, their opening bowler from the first game opened the batting this time and looked accomplished, smashing a number of big hits on his way to fifty. However the bowling remained fairly tight and they were never really up with the run rate, eventually falling seven short. Two wins in one day! Colonials then proved themselves to be the least social of social cricketers by refusing to join us for a drink afterwards. Ah well, it takes all sorts. A very enjoyable day and we look forward to finding out how our boys got on in The Philippines.
Man of Match. First game Jim and Second game Ravi
No comments:
Post a Comment