It was a day of destiny for the Anzacs. Shaluka (Shadow) had recently become
a father, thereby ignoring the worldwide ban on Sri Lankans procreating. We were
also welcoming back Deepesh (Larry), who returned to the Anzacs after a self
imposed exile, during which time he found respect, appreciation, and a better
understanding of life. Having achieved all this, he realized that it wasn’t
all it was cracked up to be, and gave it up shortly thereafter.
Shadow it was then, who decided to rouse our spirits with a pep talk, and it
went like this-
"I have played with the Anzacs for 7 years, and with myself for 10 months
ever since my wife got pregnant. Write something on a slip of paper, and let’s
win.’
Very compelling stuff.
Win we did, and in the process we proved a few things. We proved that we are
capable of putting up an imposing total; we proved that we are capable of
bowling the opposition out cheaply, and more importantly, we proved that under
controlled conditions, a turtle could be persuaded to climb onto a shovel.
Right then, Ketan (Lats) won the coin toss and quickly elected to bat against a
Greensboro team that was playing with 2 men short, and 9 short men. The Anzacs
unleashed their third opening partnering in four games, when Shekhar (Pepper)
and Bakul (Bakwaas) walked out to the middle, and there was a mad scramble for
the remaining pads as the rest of batsmen tried to pad up in anticipation of the
batting collapse. It may be worth mentioning that some weeks ago, we were trying
to come up with solutions to tackle out batting woes, and the silliest
suggestion came from Pepper himself – ‘build partnerships’.
Weak.
Tripe.
Hogwash.
It was obvious that the best thing to do would be to get our best batting
weapons into the middle as soon as possible, and in the case of the Anzacs,
these are the 8th and 9th wicket partnerships. Be that as
it may, Pepper had made his suggestion, and by God he was going to stick with
it, and he proceeded to build a solid opening stand with Bakwaas. Batting with
aggression, Pepper smacked a couple of big ones, Bakwaas joined the party as
well, the scoreboard kept ticking over, crossed 30 in the 6th over,
and a turtle walked onto the field.
…..?
Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that it wasn’t actually a turtle, but
just a Greensboro fielder who was moving very slowly.
Upon further inspection, it was revealed that it was, in fact, a turtle.
…..?……..?……………?
Flustered we may have been, but not witless. Having paid attention during
science lessons, we knew for a fact that turtles don’t grow very large, go
into their shell when threatened, and do not bite. This turtle though had
apparently been a very poor student and paid no attention to science, which we
felt was very irresponsible behavior on it’s part, and contradicted all
previously known facts about turtles. Confusion reigned as to how a bloody
turtle got all the way to the middle of the field in the first place.
Nevertheless, there it was, didn’t want to leave, and had to be dealt with.
Enter Nagaraj (Nancy re) minus a brain, and the action really started to unfold.
Initially his serpentine instincts were to the fore as he thought about
swallowing the turtle whole, but wisely refrained from doing so after it was
pointed out to him that getting rid of the shell the
following morning might be a challenge he wouldn’t be up to.
Then he tried to lift the turtle by the shell, and it snapped at his arm.
Adjusting the position of his feet, he tried to lift the turtle by the shell,
and it snapped at his arm.
Adjusting the cap on his head, he tried to lift the turtle by the shell, and it
snapped at his arm.
Quickly borrowing the wicket keeper’s glove for some reason, and then putting
them on, he tried to lift the turtle by the shell, and it adamantly continued to
snap at his arm.
There was a carnival atmosphere all around as 20 some cricketers formed a circle
around the action, encouraging both the turtle and Nancy re on, in hopes of
seeing an arm bitten off. The only thing needed to complete the scene was a
monkey working the crowd for spare change with a tin can, but Shadow refused to
co-operate. He airily explained his stance away, claiming that all of us are
broke anyway, so what’s the point. All this because we stole the money for the
coin toss from an unsuspecting toddler who was playing at the nearby playground.
This could have gone on forever, and it would have too, if Larry hadn’t shown
up with a shovel. Ah, we thought, finally something is about to get crushed.
Given the choice of either ending up
underneath the shovel or over it, the turtle finally decided to be reasonable,
and crawled onto the shovel. The scene then erupted into one of bedlam, with
Larry running towards the trees faster than he ever had in his life holding the
shovel at an arm’s length, and Nancy re helpfully running after them hurling
abuses at the turtle, while still wearing the keeper’s gloves for moral
support.
The turtle was finally deposited amongst the trees, but any relief it must have
felt was short lived, as this now merely gave the Anzacs’ batsmen something to
aim at. Pepper amused himself by immediately carting one in that general
direction, and the resulting spate of inhuman curses from the trees dispelled
yet another myth about turtles.
All of this excitement though proved too much for Bakwaas who was out shortly
thereafter. The first wicket had put on 38 runs, and we didn’t know this, but
we had already won the match. The match report, though, will go on. Lats and
Pepper continued the good work, till at 58 for 1 in the tenth over, the collapse
finally began.
Pepper, who had already hit 3 sixes in his knock, went for a fourth one, and
didn’t quite make it. He had made 33 in as many balls. Rahul (Chaman) scored a
single, a four, and a six, ran out of
challenges, and decided to pass the baton on to Shadow, who in turn was punished
by the umpire for being a Sri Lankan. Nancy re, still seething from his rather
unequal battle with the turtle, didn’t fare much better with the bat, and the
Anzacs were 81/5.
Lats and Sunil (Zero) held proceedings up a bit, putting on 25 for the 6th
wicket, and valuable overs were taken away from the prolific lower order. By the
time their annoying stand concluded in the 20th over, the Anzacs had
slid to 109/7. The game plan had now changed to one of crease occupation; the
primary goal being to bat out the 30 overs. Larry walked in, knew exactly what
he had to do, summed up the situation perfectly, and decided to have a go.
Intent on proving that his earlier prowess with the shovel was not merely a
flash in the pan, he ploughed into the bowling attack, raked a few boundaries,
mowed a few singles, farmed the strike, and finally
spooned a catch. A very agricultural innings, the conclusion of which left us at
142/8 in 23 overs.
Anirudh (Tack) watched most of this unfold at the other end, but the concern he
must have felt was nothing compared to the one he was about to feel when he
realized that if Sudeep (Hal) was in the middle, the innings must be in
disarray. For those slow on the uptake, Hal was in the middle. Tack is no
stranger to these circumstances, and he cannily waited for the batsmen to get
themselves out at the other end so he could remain unbeaten. Hal wasn’t to be
denied in the canny stakes though, and he smartly decided to let Tack do all of
the scoring, but then lost the plot somewhat by hogging most of the strike. Then
in the 28th over Hal launched one into the trees, thereby surprising
himself, the Anzacs, Greensboro, and the turtle, in that order. The slog was on
(quite frankly, it had been on for about 25 overs or so), and once Tack biffed
one himself in the same over, the fight was gone out of the Greensboro team. 38
runs came from the final three overs, and the score read a healthy 200/8. The
partnership yielded 58 runs in 7.1 overs. Tack and Hal ended unbeaten on 31 and
30 respectively, while Rupali (Attila), the official scorer, finished unbeaten
on 103.
This was the largest total we’ve had to defend in a long time, and it was a
confident Anzacs team that took the field for the second essay. Nancy re and
Zero opened the bowling attack, and now let’s pause a bit to discuss the
dynamics of this. There is nothing more emasculating to an opening bowler than
the knowledge that his only role in the whole charade is to take the shine off
the new ball, so that the spinners can come on later and actually pick up
wickets. The Sri Lankans have faced this problem for several years, and have
tackled the problem brilliantly, by getting themselves castrated. The Anzacs
though, have a different policy, and it runs along the
lines of:
"You want the shine taken off the new ball? Here you can bloody well do it
yourself!"
And so it was that Zero would have to soften up the ball himself, so that he
could bowl off-spin later on in the innings. Though of the crappy MACC ball, it
is rumored that all you need to do to make it lose it’s shine, is stare at it
real hard for about 30 seconds. That, I’m afraid, is a topic that is beyond
the scope of this match report, in which it must be said, it is getting harder
and harder to stick to the point. What point? Ah yes, Zero’s bowling. Through
all this, Zero has responded like a champion. He realizes what the task
ahead of him is, and that all he needs to do is to bowl a couple of steady overs,
and if all goes well he won’t give up too many runs, take a break, come back
for his second spell as a spinner, where he would actually be useful. Anyway, he
picked up a wicket off the very first ball of the innings.
Now it is not clear what the exact nature of the discussions in the Greensboro
dressing room was, but it appears as though one of the points of contention had
to do with the most convincing way to lose your wicket. By nicking a perfectly
pitched outswinger off the very first ball of the innings, the opener had made a
very strong case for himself. The batsman at one drop wouldn’t be denied that
easily though, and he shouldered arms to a ball that took middle stump. The next
batsman acknowledged all of these fine efforts but felt he could do better, and
disdainfully holed out to deep cover, where Jeff (Brown) took a fine running
catch to ensure that the white man
is not merely relegated to an honorable mention in this match.
Zero’s first two overs read like this: of 2-0-9-3.
In the meantime, the other opener wasn’t having much success, but this wasn’t
for want of effort. He glided a catch to point, which was duly dropped. He
popped a chance to gully, which wasn’t even attempted, Nancy re being the
unlucky party on both occasions. The batsman was getting frustrated, but after a
couple of wild swings, he composed himself admirably, and decided that the only
way to force the Anzacs to take a catch was to offer it three times in a row. He
did so against Larry, and Bakwaas took the third such offering, after toying
with the batsman by coming in one step at a time. Lats picked up a wicket with a
typical flighted, teasing delivery bowled at 85 mph. Larry added to his tally,
and the next batsman, Gifty, didn’t do too………..whoa! Wait a minute!
Gifty?
Yep.
Gifty
Yep.
The guy’s name is Gifty?
Apparently.
Oh dear.
Yep.
Time for a limerick?
Quite.
There was a man named Gifty
Whose brain wasn’t quite nifty
What he needed was an alias
But instead he bought a dress
And roamed around in mufti
That was horrible, get on with it.
Sorry.
So Gifty was a bit unlucky to be adjudged LBW, but given the fact that he’s
got an entire lifetime to ponder the misfortune of being named Gifty, he quickly
put things in perspective and walked off without looking too unhappy. The final
wicket also went to Lats, as Pepper took a brilliant catch, after the ball
deflected off Hal’s glove (it typically misses the glove altogether, so this
was a significant improvement on the part of Hal as well). Greensboro had been
destroyed for 36, Lats with figures of 1.4-0-3-3, and Larry with figures of
2-0-3-2, polishing things off at the end.
Finally, a great win for us, with almost everything going our way. The only
concern still, is the tendency of the batsmen to give their wicket away, but
that is another topic for another day. Special thanks goes to the rest of the
Anzacs squad who showed up to support the team, with the notable exception of
the twelfth man, who chose to support the team from the comfort of his couch. As
always, thanks go to Attila for her tireless efforts, and the brilliant hundred.
Later on, the Anzacs partied like a team that had won after nearly a year. This
was because the Anzacs were a team that had won after nearly a year. The High
Point loss is now well and truly forgotten.
High Point? What’s that? Is that a state of mind? Must be. What’s for lunch?