Lessons in cricket.

Lesson 1. Never underestimate an opponent.

Turning up on a fine sunny Saturday afternoon to play the second to bottom team in the league, the All Stars turned up to a well turned out Clyde Park to take on the second to bottom of the table Diamonds team. History suggested it would be a bit of a cakewalk as the last fixture ended with the All Stars posting 199 and then bowling the Diamonds out for 39. The mood was relaxed and confident and discussions quickly turned to which pub we would be watching the one dayer in an an hour or so.

Diamonds won the toss and chose to bat, further increasing the chance of an early finish. Gibbo opened the bowling and clean bowled their opener with his first delivery. After the opening spell, Diamonds were 1-17 after 9 overs. The beer was smelling good... New guy Caleb was first change and took a wicket in his first over...

Duncan bowled two tight overs... things looking good, game in bag. Then the wheels started falling off. A bad over by Duncan ended in toys being dispatched to all parts of the cot, our 5th bowling option Glenn injured his leg somehow, Jared couldn't find the length he'd been so successful with previously and one of their guys started pasting us around the ground.

Needing to replace Duncan's overs super-Brendan offered to bowl some very tidy off spin, and it appears we have found yet another player who gets more turn than Yapper. Once Caleb dismissed their star batsman for 84 (64 in fours) Duncan having opted to keep suddenly found his willingness to bowl again. We soldiered through to the 30th over and Gibbo and Dave mopped up their tail. There were a few dropped catches along the way with the ball seeming to follow Dan and his pub stamps around the field. Mentions for Willy (Dan's flatmate) who fielded well at point taking a good catch.

While we thought they might have made it through to 180 if they were lucky, the score in the book was 210. A good score by any standards.

Lesson 2. Recognised Batsmen should score runs

We started our chase well. Or rather they started our chase well for us with their opening bowler sending down one dubious (no) ball first up that wasn't called followed by 5 wides, a dot ball then another 2 wides. After 2 legitimate deliveries he turned to spin landing 4 in a row (two of which got dispatched for four.) Brendon got out in the next over at which point we discovered rather than being a 4 piece kookaburra or platypus ball, they had used a dubious 2 piece of distinctly indian looking origins. A 10-15 minute discussion ensued which ended when we lent them the ball we had used for the remainder of our innings. Surprisingly the game still went by in reasonable spirits.

Unfortunately, our batting was pretty poor. Duncan out for a respectable 35, Brendan 8, Jimmy 5, Dave G 5, Daniel 3 and things were looking dodgy at 4-88 and then 5-100.

Gibbo and John batted brilliantly, with Gibbo stating the goal of batting through to 180. Which he did. Exactly. So with 30 runs to go John guided, noodled, occasionally slogged us through to needing 12 off 3. A last fatal slog and John was gone for a well compiled 28, and we were down to our ring ins.

A skillful edge through the vacant slips left us with 8 off 2 overs.... A solid 5 balls of the penultimate over and we were down to needing 2 runs to win off 7 balls. A lofted cut shot just over the head of point, the boys through for the first run before the guy got to the ball and the game looked in the bag. Till someone called NO. The square leg umpire yelled at them to run to no avail.... A sheepish looking Caleb apologised and we needed 1 to win.

The obligatory mid-wicket between overs conference and the aforementioned square leg umpire said... just f**king run! Willy agreed that he would just try to get bat on ball. First ball was in the slot so bat on ball comprised a lofted off drive for 4 and a win to the boys!

Huntly next week, and I think the lads will be a trifle less casual. All in all, a good result and a tough run chase. I think we've now qualified for the semi-finals as we can't be caught by the 5th place team. Well done lads!

Lesson 3 - Winning hides many faults!

P.O.D points

Gibbo 3 - 2 for 18 off 6, and 70

John 2 - 28 crucial runs

Brendan 1 - Stand in Wicket keeper, and then turning the arm over when we were in dire need.

Honourable mention: Willy (a good catch and 9 awesome runs)