19th February 2022 @ Booralee 3
by Isaac
Despite both the weather forecast and the BOM radar promising little chance of rain, the skies above Booralee 3 told a different story. A ubiquitous blanket of heavy grey rainclouds covered the sky, threatening to unleash their payload of cricket ruining precipitation at any moment. The meteorological auspices might have been dire, but the fortune of the coin toss was, for the first time this season, favourable for the captain. With a team as heavily laden with bowlers as the clouds above were with rain, Kingsford decided to take the field and test the top of the table Botany’s batting line up.
Foley and Seymour opened up the bowling, and it wasn’t long before they struck. Seymour captured the first wicket as the opposition captain tried to pull him to the short square-leg boundary, but only succeeded in chopping the ball onto his middle peg. Two feather edges to the keeper and a thick edge that was gobbled up by Malcolm at 2nd slip saw Botany 4 for Not Many after just 6 overs with Foley and Bryan sharing the spoils with two wickets apiece.
The Botany middle order dug in after their mini-collapse and picked off the occasional boundary without giving away any chances. They managed to see it to the drinks break without losing another wicket. Their score, 4-60. It was at the drinks break that the skies decided that they couldn’t hold it anymore, and the rain finally arrived.
A thirty-minute shower came and went, reducing the game to 31 overs each, and adding a layer of water to the field that promptly turned the ball into a bar of soap. Credit must go to Dinesh, Vipul, Henry, Blake, and Jono who were thrown the ball in difficult conditions and managed to keep the run rate down. Jono made the long-awaited breakthrough, rattling the stumps of Botany’s top scorer, and followed it up the very next ball with an edge to the keeper. Foley took the only other wicket of the innings with Al “Best Slips Fielder in the Club” Yap diving to his left at a wide second slip to claim a great catch.
The Botany tail hung around to add a few more runs to the score but ended up finishing with a slightly below par 7-140 off their 31 overs. Foley was the pick of the bowlers with 3-18. With Jono finishing 2-25 and Seymour 2-26.
In a shake up to normal proceedings, Al Yap and Blake Milligan opened up the batting. The idea being to hit the ball along the ground (a concept completely foreign to Malcolm McCredie) and allow the wet ground to soften up the seam and take the shine off the ball. The pair batted well, building a partnership of 58 from 14 overs before Milligan (
and Yap (38) were dismissed in quick succession by a pair of sharp outfield catches. Rohit and Chinmay came in next with the goal of lifting the run rate, but Rohit skied one which was caught at mid-on and Chinmay was trapped in front not long after.
Having the openers build such a strong platform meant that losing four wickets in quick succession still left us in a strong position. Malcolm hit a quickfire 14 before somehow chipping a leading edge over the head of the keeper and down first slip’s throat. Williams and Seymour then put on a better than a run a ball 40 run partnership to take the pressure off. A towering 6 over mid-on from Williams put a nice new dent in a grey ute, while Seymour hit their returning opening bowler for an equally clean six just a few balls later. Williams eventually fell on 19 to another sharp catch (a diving one-handed caught and bowled), and Seymour followed the next over trying to hit one over the fence that he didn’t quite time. Jono and Dinesh came to the crease with Kingsford needing less than a run a ball from the last 6 overs, and they didn’t hold back. Some quick running between wickets and a massive six into the play area in cow corner saw Jono (20*) and Dinesh (8*) chase down the remaining runs with two overs to spare.
Great contributions all around with the bat. Al Yap’s 38 is the best inning I’ve seen him play in recent memory, while McCredie, Williams, Seymour and Carey all found boundaries when we needed to lift the run rate. It was a great team performance to beat the top of the table Botany and puts us in a really good position to try and snatch second spot on the table just before finals.
Selected Comments:
Gazi: That’s how you write match report ! Read and learn ! Well done skip.
Kal: Meteorological auspices… Nice
Salty: Now that’s a report
Declan: Great win Guys and outstanding match report Isaac
Smokey: Credit must go to Isaac and his T20 inspired captaincy to drop himself a la Aaron Finch to 5, and elevate Blake Milligan (same initials as Ben McDerrmott), and Al (the hirsute version of Ashton Agar) to the top of the order. A certain former opener and excellent match reporter, who chose to take the field for another club on Saturday might find it hard to get his spot back 🙂