Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Please! Just let me play one more game

Well, what a result!

Excuse my previous post about lamenting that last night's game could be our last and that we had little chance of winning with a severely understrength side. But all those fears were put aside as our little team of six rallied together magnificently in our last-chance semifinal game and beat a full strength side, earning our place in next weeks grand final match.

Losing the toss, we were sent in to bat. Our mission was clear; set a massive target that will be defendable with only six in the field. And we did just that.

Opening the innings with James, we set a foundation with 34 runs. No dismissals, just common-sense, no risk batting. The next two partnerships yielded 33 and 38 runs, and already we scored 105 runs after 12 overs.

It was time for the opposition to pick the unlucky two batsmen to play out the final partnership. They chose me and, to my big surprise, Wazza, who is one of our best batsmen and the one who made the 38 run partnership. I'm having a lot of good form with the bat lately. And it's a left hand right hand partnership, making it tougher on the bowlers to adjust their line. So I think the opposition made a bad choice. Going on form they probably should have chosen Glen and Olly to bat out the last overs.

In the end, their choice of batsmen blew up in their face as we score 51 runs, heaping a big total of 156 runs. Hopefully it was big enough to defend with only six bowlers.

And we did so magnificently. The opposition run chase was very inept. Always trying to play boundary shots against good balls, they only succeeded in scoring 1's, 2's or losing their wicket cheaply. And often they did lose their wicket. After 3 partnerships, their score was still in the 30's. With 120 odd to chase in the final partnership and some ultra defensive bowling from us, they never had any chance, and meekly gave up their place in the finals. It was total annihilation.

So, we made the finals (for the second time) and hopefully we can win this one! It won't be easy as the opposition are the form team of the competition. But it will be a great way to bow out of the competition, and hopefully that will motivate us to win. If we could win with only six players, against the odds, imagine how far we could go.

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