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Week 6 saw us back at Wellington Oval playing against second in the table, Crows Nest Rebels.
AB lost a very strange toss, where Rebels captain wore what appeared to be a Japanese gown (er, why?), called heads and when it came up tails declared he had just been pointing out which side was heads …….(Apparently, our social media guru Jacko posted the toss on Instagram, where it is said to have gone viral). Anyway, the toss was retaken, we lost it but we would have batted anyway.
Cagey fell early, and Yogesh in his last game before heading to India was also out cheaply. 2 down for 18. Sharpy was playing well though and Riordo, against opponents he battered last season, was also starting to find his feet until he surprisingly holed out for 17. 64-3. AB joined Sharpy and, in customary fashion, watched the show from the other end as Sharpy cut loose. Sharpy brought up his 50 in the 20th over, and then his 100 only 8 overs later, taking 23 off one over. AB was out to a smart catch for 25, the partnership 104 in 15 overs. The innings closed at 207-6 with Sharpy 139no (22 fours and a six) - a terrific knock.
The run chase started with Rebels captain trying to hit everything out of the ground, but 2 quick wickets from Romo & AB (1-38) slowed down the run chase. Before drinks we kept it tight and after 18 overs Rebels were 77-2, requiring a further 130 off 17 overs. We were definitely favourites. But straight after drinks we bowled badly, dropped a few chances and allowed numbers 3 & 4 to both get 50s. Rebels gained the initiative and we were creaking (quite literally for some of us). With 9 overs to go, Rebels needed only 50 with 8 wickets in hand. But then Sharpy (2-23), our new all rounder, took a couple of wickets with boundary catches from Cagey and Romo. Romo (3-30) was brought back and took 2 in two balls and we sniffed a chance to get back in it. Unfortunately, we dropped more catches and the game slipped away and with 2 overs to go scores were tied. Karl was brought on to bowl and bowled a wicket maiden. We couldn’t, could we …..? No, we couldn’t – an edge past short third man off the first ball of the last over took Rebels to victory.
207 runs should have been enough, but we were a bowler short today and it showed. (If there are any bowlers out there who fancy a game please get in touch!)
No game next week as we have a bye, time for the old blokes to rest our bodies. We’ve now played everyone in the league and only once have we been well and truly smashed, 3 matches going down to the last over. So it’s a pretty tight group and hopefully we can win a few games in the run-up to Christmas.