Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Strange day at the Galla

It's always a fiery encounter when Star take the field against old foes Old Boys, but what transpired was one of the more unusual days of cricket the writer has been involved in.

It started when Cummo and Mike W walked out at 9.20 to inspect the pitch, only to find that no pitch had been prepared. After some mad ringing around, Ru was finally contacted for us to find we had been moved to Galla 4. The new problem was that the A's were there expecting to play and no one knew where they were playing, with Ru now uncontactable.

With no real warm up and Old Boys deciding to bat first, we took the field with no umpire, thanking the lord that the new Indian umpire who sawed through the Suburbs innings the two weeks before was nowhere in sight. This was short lived as he turned up late to take his place in the third over. A run out was our first wicket as a stupid second run reminiscent of the last ball of the week before saw them 30/1. It wasn't long before the wickets started falling including a stifled appeal from Garry which saw Old Boys captain Goat given for a ball that would have missed another couple of stumps. Rowly was the stand out with an excellent 5 wicket haul, with good backup from Joel where we really turned the screws. At 101/9 just after lunch we thought it was all but over, however a 35 run last wicket stand saw them through to 136 all out, on what we believed was a good batting deck.

Zeb was adjudged LBW early, which was the start of some rediculous over appealing from old boys. Everything that hit the pad was appealed for, including our second wicket when Aidan fell. The problem was it was an appeal for caught behind down leg side which they knew was not out, only for when Aidan shook his head and turned away, an old boys player said ' look, he's walking' and the umpire duly put the finger up. Bizarre. Ollie was the next one fired with a ball going well down. Brenton was gone next LBW and we were thinking of walking off as it was getting ludicrous. When Cummo was fired LBW coming down the pitch to L Weights off spin, a few choice comments were made to the umpire about some silly umpiring, followed by a few quiet words to Jason Perret, ex old boys captain filling in on vacation from Oz, politely telling him to cut his holiday short and return to his new found homeland. Another 2 LBW's in the last five wickets saw 6 LBW's in the innings and a dodgy caught behind. However, through all this, Guy decided not to use his pad and punished the old boys bowlers to all parts. A superb knock falling four short of his maiden century with a lap shot to a medium pacer bringing his down fall.

All out for 187 and about 15 overs left in the day made us think some choice appealing would see them lose a few wickets late in the day. However, this was not to be the case, possibly due to Cummo's outburst earlier and the umpire in the next game having a chat at tea, the finger was put away and possibly the closest LBW we appealed for all day was turned down. We did get them one down and they are yet to make our score, which will leave an interesting day next week, especially with a likely suspension for Captain Cummo on the cards.

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