Spirits v OverEasy

After what seemed like the biggest storm to ever hit Singapore on the Friday evening before the match, the two captains decided to split the game up into two 15 innings stretches in order to negate any no-result due to additional bad weather. Eventually it was decided to start off with two 20 over innings and then two 15 over innings. Spirits captain Charl won the toss and decided to bat first, sending in Logu and Abhi to open the festivities. Scoring was initially quite slow, although Logu did pick up the pace and ended up with 19 off 24 balls, including three fours, after being bowled in the 9^th over by the pacey lefty Ashwin Bhat. This left the score on 39/2 after Abhiram was C&B in the 7^th over for 10 off 21. James Trewin (9 off 18, Caught) and new Spirits player Dave Moore (0 off 3, suspicious LBW) managed to scrape together a few runs. Shalabh played some nice shots for his 19 off 24, and unfortunately Rammy could not capitalise on a great shot for 4 and was bowled for that score off 6 balls. With the score on 58 for 5 after 14 overs, Charl came in and managed to hit a couple of 6’s in his score of 23 off 25 balls. He was eventually bowled off the penultimate ball of the last over, which left Varun to score one run off the last ball. Some runs could have gone for 4’s if the outfield was not so wet, which could have given the Spirits quite a few more runs.

Spirits eventually ended up with a meagre 99 runs on the board after 20 overs, which initially seemed at least 30 – 40 runs short of the required target. OverEasy replied with a well batted 153, giving them a decent 54 run lead after the first innings. There weren’t any noticeable bowling figures, but Sean, James and Abhi each managed to pick up a wicket and an additional run-out in the field. Spirits fielding was not too hot on the day, with a couple of catches going down, but the wet outfields really did not make life easy either. 

The second innings was reduced to 12 overs per team, since there was a worry that the match would not be completed before the dark settled in. Spirits brain trust decided that in order to stay competitive in the game, we would at least had to get 120 runs in the 12 overs, setting a competitive 70 odd run chase for the OverEasy team. It was therefore balls-to-the-walls for Spirits and all started relatively well enough with the reverse order now in place and the tail-enders blazing about the pitch. Jack Coupland and Sean Brown opened the 2^nd innings, with Jack not managing to bother the scoreboard at all for his 0 off 4 balls. But Sean did hit some majestic shots for his 26 off 19 balls (1 x 6, 1 x 4 and a bunch of 2 run runs….I know there’s a song in there somewhere). Between Varun (5 off 4, bowled), Shalabh (17 off 15) and Sean they managed to get the score up to 52/3 when Sean was eventually bowled. Charl, with another couple of sixes (19 off 20) and Shalabh managed to add some additional runs on the board, before Shalabh retired due to dehydration. Rammy (3 off 5) was stonked by the ‘keeper, which brought Dave Moore (3*) to the pitch. Charl was eventually bowled and James made a quick fire 9 off 7 balls. Spirits eventually ended up with 94 runs off the 12 overs, which was a competitive 7.8 runs per over, but once again 30 – 40 runs short of what was ideally required.

OverEasy were therefore left with 41 runs for victory. Abhi and Rammy valiantly opened the bowling and their 3 over spells were bowled quite toitly. Logu caught a pearler of a catch off Abhi’s bowling to get rid of Ashwin Bhat who looked like a decent batsmen as well. Two additional run-outs in the field gave the Spirits some hope, before Varun eventually got the 4^th wicket to fall in the 7^th over. With OverEasy on 33/4 after 7 overs, the required 41 runs were just not enough to defend on the day and OverEasy eventually hit the winning runs off the 8^th over from Logu and won the game by 6 wickets.

In afterthought – it never looked like it was going to rain the whole day, so we probably should have stuck with the initial 30 overs per team, which could have perhaps resulted in a different outcome to the game?

As per the norm, fresh, cold beers were consumed by all after the game and our newest Spirit, Dave Moore was initiated into the Spirits family. He had the privilege to taste beer out of his captains well-used box.