ANZACs vs TFCC
On a warm Sunday morning the ANZACs sat around waiting the arrival of The Fighters CC from
Charlotte. They are a new addition to the MACC and typically were 45 minutes late in arriving at
Shiloh. But we eventually got the game underway with the ANZACs taking up the willow.
The innings opened dubiously with three wickets falling in the first eight overs to bowling which seemed mediocre at best. Apparently Jonathan, Satbir and Andre all thought they were on top of the bowling before they really were. Satbir was unfortunate to be given out LBW when all around the ground clearly heard two sounds as the ball rapped him on his pads, but the umpireseemed unfazed and raised his finger. But with Harman "Britney" Singh looking in good touch and Ketan farming singles nicely a partnership quickly developed as the ANZACs raced to 100, and 200 was clearly in the offering.
The chase to 200 was interrupted by an unfortunate run out of Harman at the non strikers end when the bowler got his fingers to a shot fired back at him and (un)luckily directed it onto the stumps to find Harman backing up too far and out for 59. However, that didn't seem to phase Ketan who suddenly displayed a few thundering strokes we didn't know he had in his arsenaldispatching the bowler for four consecutive boundaries and the run chase carried on. Simon departed the wicket after another unfortunate dismissal, though he must take full responsibility for this one. He walked up the wicket after a single to deep long on and failed to ground his bat at the non-strikers end when the return throw from the outfield made a direct hit.Though no one was there to collect the ball and most on the field thought that the play was over Simon was left stranded with the umpire's finger again in the air.
This incident then set in place a typical ANZACs batting collapse. A string of 5 run partnerships saw us proceed to 175 all out, but with four overs to play we should have been far closer to 200 in the end. Ketan ended on a well played 52 for his first half century for the ANZACs. The third highest score in the innings was wides with 31 being called during the innings. Apparently the umpire was determined to have in impact on the outcome of the game calling virtually everything that didn't come close to the wickets a wide. The 31 runs aided us, but he did turn around and call 36 against us in the afternoon!
The afternoon found the ANZACs doing everything conceivable to lose the game. We dropped five catches, bowled 36 wides and in general fielded like Arjuna Ranatunga after a large lunch. But apparently we were still the better side and despite the inevitable 60 run eight wicket partnership we finally collected the last two wickets and walked home winners by 37 runs.Not a lot needs to be said about the bowling because it wasn't very pretty. The best bowling figures belonged to Harman with 6-0-29-3 and Simon 5.1-0-25-2. Man of the match: *** Harman ** Ketan * Simon.
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