Action Cricket Chronicles - fit the 3rd

And this brings us up to date:

The second game of the season was upon us on Friday, the third we have played including the grading game, and the third consecutive loss.

I’m starting to feel a little like Bangladesh here. Once again, we won the toss (as they did); once again we decided to bat first (as they did) and once again we were outplayed (as they were). Oh the misery.

Things started badly. Our intrepid openers, Colin and Danie, walked out full of purpose. The lights glaring harshly down upon them, throwing shadows into sharp relief. And immediately fell into problems. Colin was out first ball. The second wasn’t much better, with the stumps flying backwards potentially damaging their wicky with shrapnel. However, the first injury was Colin, who pulled his hamstring, and was man down by the end of the first over. JC, ever the trooper, walked in to help him out. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals, Colin hobbled through the first 4 overs, JC ran madly from end to end, and the entire partnership managed to add a nice round 0 by the end of it.

Full of fear (although it was probably the flu more than the fear) I shuffled in, trying manfully to hide behind my partner, Fred. Fortunately, he is broader of shoulder than I, and so they hardly noticed me. Unfortunately, after Fred smote the first ball for a mighty 6, I was on strike. The bowler snorted, harrumphed, angry at being dismissively smashed, and promptly took my wicket out of the ground. I recovered – lacing the next delivery for 4, before promptly being run out. Things were not going well. The fielding was electric, the wickets tumbled, but the partnership somehow reached a positive number. A small positive number – but a positive number none-the-less. We made 5.

Darren, our walking injured, and Ross walked in to face the rampant opposition. Poor JC was again called on to run for young Dazzler, who started positively. Ross provided a perfect foil – pushing ones until the final ball was pitched in the slot and he drove gloriously for 4. An over was complete without a wicket going down! Was there a twist to this tale of woe? No. Although, by far the best partnership of the innings, it was still woefully small at 34.
The final pairing of Ruaan and the, by now exhausted, JC took up the challenge. Wickets didn’t fall quite a regularly as with the first two partnerships, but fall they did, and the runs flowed, rather than gushed. They fought manfully to get us to a competitive total – but 39 from 12 overs was too bad a start to properly recover from, and they added just 24.

With poor JC basically crawling on his wobbling pins, Darren limping in, Colin barely moving on his busted hamstring, and myself snorting and coughing up my lung it was a sorry group of intrepid cricketers that took the field to try and defend the woefully small total. We could only hope that the opposition were as weak with their batting as they were strong on bowling … when the first over conceded 12 runs, the third 17 and fourth 22 we knew that was a vain hope. Not a single wicket fell in the first partnership, and they left in the comfortable position of 57 in 4 overs …

The first wicket came in the second partnership, courtesy of a run out off yours truly … Danie followed suit with two in his first over before the bats fought back, thumping 30 runs from the next two overs, one of which was bowled from a standstill by the hamstrung Colin. The fielding was awful. JC dropped an absolute sitter, numerous throws went so wild that at one stage the bats ran two overthrows, and I dropped two stingers that I really should have held. We were as bad as England against New Zealand, but without the benefit of being in a position of strength. The target was overhauled by the end of the second partnership.

For the remaining eight overs we needed to not only stem the flow of runs, but take numerous wickets, and we failed in both tasks. This despite the brilliant efforts of the untiring Ross, who took a marvelous catch from close quarters, which literally doubled him over, and then a second off his own bowling. By the end of the third partnership, our score had been more than doubled by our opponents, and the final pairing, despite being the weakest of their entire team, hammered home the advantage.

We were outplayed, but the spirits remained good – JC played backstop with little complaint, and still more fire (threatening to bean the opponents with his bullet arm); and Colin kept wicket, despite falling to the ground in agony on every delivery. A win must surely be in the near future. If not – well at least we’re having fun. Sortof.