Sunday, February 15, 2009

Sayonara Old Boys!

On Saturday morning, the weather had changed from a sweltering 30 odd degrees with 100% humidity earlier in the week, to a icy cold South Easterly blow with rain all over the show. Not an ideal day for cricket! The longs came out, and neither team said a word about player umpires in full whites. The pitch was so wet that the skippers chose to use the previous week's pitch. In seriousness no-one expected the game to get near the 100 scheduled overs. The coin got flipped none the less and Star was put in to bat in bowler friendly conditions.

At very few for 3 after about 8 overs the Star skipper was thinking that 120 odd would be a good result. In stepped Pieter Geldenhuis, fresh off the boat from a balmy Australia, and he had other ideas. It wasn't a flawless start, but he made sure to cash in on the chance Old Boys gave him early on. At the other end Andrew Stirling dug deep, and while Pieter was bashing the medium pacers around, Andrew defended well against the best spin Old Boys had to offer. Pieter ended up out on 78, Andrew departed soon after with a good 30 odd. The tail did their bit with most chipping in. Eben Geldenhuis ended up on 31 not out helping Star to a very good 228.

The Star openers bowled well, all be it quite slow on a very slow pitch. The OB openers looked to have a swing a pretty much everything, but it wasn't till the 8th over before they got bat on anything. One opener got out to the bowling of Reg Prasad, timing a drive straight to cover, while the other opener seemingly couldn't get out even though he tried his best. Dropped twice, nearly run out twice, and having a half volley bounce over middle stump...... The "lotto ticket" call got well and truly abused. At 30 overs gone the run rate had crept up with OB still needing 125 of 20 overs. To their credit, they had wickets in hand. Overs 30 to 34 cost Star dearly with 38 runs conceded and no wickets taken. After drinks, OB needed 87 of 16 with 7 wickets in hand, and they were rightly confident of a win.

The Star skipper's containment plan didn't really do the job, and OB needed only 17 runs of five overs with 5 wickets in hand. They had their best batsman at the crease and he looked confident to finish it off, the Star field was 1 down due to an injury, and the 10 fielders left were pretty tired. What followed will be remembered in Star folklore as the 9 deliveries that that sunk the ever buoyant Old Boys ship! The first two overs yielded 10 runs, so with three overs to go, 7 runs needed and still 5 wickets in hand, Star needed a miracle..... Pieter Geldenhuis started the next over with a perfectly flighted slower ball yorker. Middle stump! The main OB threat departed, and suddenly some belief returned to a jaded Star fielding effort. The Star boys started looking like they wanted to win again, but with less than 2 boundary's needed off 17 balls, the task seemed impossible. Dig deep was the call, and suddenly the ball couldn't make it off the square as Star fielders swamp it, in an effort to safe every thought of a run. Two deliveries later, and another batsmen found the moment to big, and then another............. A brilliant over by the ex Saffer wannabe Aussie, great fielding, and some superb pressure, but still Old Boys had the upper hand: Two overs to go, 7 runs needed with 2 wickets in hand.

And then: Controversy!!!! The Star skipper steps up to bowl his last over.. "You re bowled out", came the panicked call from the OB sideline. "Its in the book, you cant bowl anymore!" The Star skipper replied: "Then the book is wrong!" After 10 minutes of arguing, the Star skipper handed the ball to Tharik Alam, and told him to bowl seam up! Tharik (aka Magicman) is a regular spinner, but it was almost universally accepted that he would have to bowl this over seam up. He grabbed the ball with both hands and went to the back of his random run up. Dot! The batsman misses!..... One ball less to get the 7 required... ............. Wicket! ............ Unbelievable! ................... Big high fives and Aussie ass pats did the rounds twice as excitement filled the air. At this point no-one realised that one more wicket would seal the deal...... The next batsman took his guard as the Star skipper turned to the umpire and asked: "How many wickets down?" "Nine" came the subdued reply.

The previous 8 deliveries came and went in what felt like seconds. Magicman trundled in again, and then slow motion took over....... The ball floated its way to a goodish length, and as it had done all day, the ball held up just a touch.... The batsman rocked back and lined up the vacant V behind the bowler..... The ball hit the middle of the big, square batted, tailenders slap. It took off towards the straight boundary at a speed that seemed quick even in the slow motion time freeze that enveloped the whole ground............ Eyes stretching all round the field..... Sweat beads dripping to the grass as the echo of leather on wood is the only audible noise to all concerned. ...... ........... ................ Out of nowhere, like someone had hit the play button, magicman leapt out of his follow through and plucked the ball out of the sky like it was a ripe plum! It took several seconds for the Star boys to realise what had just happened, but once they did, euphoria set in. The pitch turned into madness, and the sideline into a bat throwing contest! Revenge is so sweet, and against Old Boys it is even sweeter!

Pieter Geldenhuis was the standout of the day, with 78 runs and bowling figures of 3 for 14 of 8. Tharik, Rohit and Reg all chipped in with wickets, but in the end the team rally in the last five overs stood out above all as the play of the day!

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