The final game for spirits was against ANZA. There was a large storm before the game and the ground was mostly under water. We agreed to play a reduced game of 25 overs as both sides need maximum points to push ladder leaders SCC and hope they washout against British Club. Before the game SCC had 3 games for 20pts, Spirits were 3 games for 19pts and ANZA 3 games 19pts so it was tight at the top. Ian Law was captain for this game and duly won the toss. We only had 5 players at the start so we had to bat on the wet ground. ANZA only had 9 players, after Amar has refused Pete Alexander transfer from Misfits, and Ian Law agreed to let the 13 year old son of Tony Edmondson play in a veteran’s game! John and Dave started well with 16 off the first two overs but in the third over Dave went lbw and bowled off the same ball. In the next over two wickets fell in two balls with Sandeep bowled middle stump and Tushar out second ball caught behind so Ralston walked to the crease with the score at 22/3. John went next over to a good low catch for 17 and we were 22/4 off 5 overs, we had lost 4 wickets for 5 runs in 13 balls and the heart of Spirits batting in the shed. Graeme joined Ralston and got the run rate up a bit with Ralston holding up the other end. With Graeme retiring with 31 off 31 balls, Sivan was next in and continued to up the run rate and retire with 31 off 26. Ralston went out to the 13 year old (4 overs 14/1) and had scored 24 off 51 balls, including 34 dot balls, 4 twos – all ran and a 4. I am sure Ian Law may have regretted this kid to play veterans league, Ralston regretted it! With two retirees in the shed the next few batsmen should have be running on anything, Madhu got 7 off 9, James hit a nice straight drive but was run out on the second and Ian and Sean got 7 off the last 8 balls and we finished with 137 off the 25 overs. Not too bad after being 22/4 and enough for the Windies to win the world cup but with the ground drying out it was ~30 runs short.
Tushar opened the bowling in miserly fashion but the fun was at the other end with Sean bowling. In the last Veterans game Sean claimed he was unhittable with 6 dot balls in an over, despite bowling 6 wides but they couldn’t hit the other 6 balls. This week was a little different. First ball sailed 6 foot over the batsmen’s head, second ball nearly hit his head but the batsman hooked it for 4, next a wide, another head high full toss hooked for 1. Any decent umpire should have stopped him bowling after three head high full tosses, and we would have agreed, but they let him go on. The next ball at least bounced and went for a boundary, another wide, another 4, a DOT BALL!, head high full toss then a few more wides, two singles to finish with a 16 ball over costing 25 runs. Sean claimed the strike rate was only 9 runs an over as he bowled nearly 3 overs! Amazingly Captain Ian Law wanted to give him another over but common sense prevailed and Sivan came on for a tidy over of 4 runs. Tushar has 3 overs for 8 runs at the other end so 5 overs for 37 wasn’t too bad then Sivan decided to get hit for 21 off his next over off 6 balls, no wides & no no-balls. Sean only had 15 off the bat in his 6 legitimate balls so in his mind Sivan was worse? Anyway 58 off 6 overs the match was gone, Tushar got 17 off 5 overs. Graeme Gardiner bowled very well 15/1 off 4 overs including a very good C&B. Sandeep 11/0 off 2 overs and Madhu got 16/0 off 3 overs bowled OK. Captain Law brought himself on to buy a wicket and after 15 off the first over was looking a bit of a dodgy decision but some have chances came by and in his second over he got two wickets to finish with 26/2 off 2. ANZA got the 138 runs in 18.4 overs to just miss the bonus point and we got 2 points. 51 runs came off 3 overs and 87 off the other 16 overs, if only!
Best player would be Graeme Gardiner with 31 and 1/15 while booby prize was a tossup with Sean 25/0 off 1 over (16 balls), Sivan 25/0 off 12 balls or Ian 26/2 off 15 balls but it needs to go to unhittable Sean with 6 wides and 4 full tosses above shoulder height!
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