Match report: Zootallargy v/s Sanger, 26 June, Queens College Sports Ground
The day before the game 5 players had signed up and Matt sensibly sent out a mail saying we might need a few more to make a game out of it. I was about to head to the streets looking out for subcontinental faces, but a couple of my Indian friends (Satish & Mahanth) called in the nick of time to say they could play. Meanwhile Antony, our new Zoology recruit, chatted up a couple of random blokes who had heard about the game called cricket (Tom and Ani) and signed them up, bringing the team total to 10. We reached Queens ground with grey skies threatening to rain and hearts filled with sadness at the loss of Simon Baxter. Matt won the toss and cleverly opted to field first, knowing that batting has always been Zootallurgy's strength. As luck would have it, it started raining just before the scheduled start of play. Not knowing who was playing for which team, we got around to socializing with friends and foes alike to while away time. The rains eased by about 6:17, Tom bowled a few on the pitch, and having confirmed they bounced above knee height, a 16-over-aside game was decided upon. Perhaps Captain Matt Chandler's crystal ball told him something about events to unfold, for he had changed into The Official Zoology Captain's Vest, sponsored by Ramraj Banian Co, in tune with their motto.
With sawdust liberally sprinked on the pitch in places where I normally never place my foot, I opened the show gingerly from the road-opposite end, beginning with a full toss that was dispatched for a couple. The new ball now looked like it had been rescued from drowning. After some heavy duty wiping, I decided to use the pitch the next ball, and banged it in short, which went 2 meters above the batsman. As the next ball was hooked away to the boudary with ease, the ominous signs of erratic bowling brought an audible hush to the field. Luckily things improved with the tighter second over Matt bowled from the road end. Beating the bat with some good deliveries now and then, and mixing them up with rank bad short balls, I managed to prise out the freely scoring opener who was caught behind deftly by our debutant wicket-keeper Alex Eggeman. He was replaced (not Alex, the batsman) by a Herschelle Gibbs look-alike. What with the wet ball and slippery run-ups, the bowling was less tidy than usual, but Matt was the better of the two openers and ended up with 4-0-22-0, whereas I got 4-0-28ish-1. The opposition were 54-1 at the halfway stage.
FACT 1: The throw from mid off to try and run Herschelle Gibbs out was hurled in at 103.96 mph. Having valiantly stopped it with my heel and nonchalantly continued discharging my cricketing duties for the rest of the day, I feel considerably more stupid the next morning limping around like the three-legged camel in children's movies.
Matt played by the rules and refused to let me bowl after my quota of 4 overs. In came debutant Antony as replacement. His left-arm bowling was fiercely quick, but otherwise in similar vein to that of mine wrt mixing up full tosses, bouncers, peaches, plums, etc. Antony later informed me he was out of practice; with a little of this in his arsenal, he will surely serve Zootallurgy well. Welcome Antony! The batsmen respectfully defended or got beaten by the good ones and dispatched the crap ones, as they had been doing the whole day. If we thought Antony was quick, Tom was even quicker, much more accurate and was by far the best bowler of the day. He ripped out wickets at regular intervals, clean bowling his first three victims.
FACT 2: We all know Matt Chandler is retiring at the end of the season to join the circus. He did treat us to his juggling skills before finally taking a catch to give Tom his fourth wicket.
Simon Martin took a stunning low catch in the deep for Tom's fifth wicket to end the opposition innings at 105. Tom got 5 for 15 or so, not sure what Antony got. Extras and overthrows were quite a few, none of which detracts from Eggeman's fine performance behind the stumps, though.
Opening the innings with the calm, composed, and technically sound Ani, Simon seemed to want to end our innings inside 5 overs. The first couple of overs from their opening bowlers were tight, with no looseners and hardly a bad delivery. But the looseners arrived belatedly in the third over and Simon took full toll by smashing 6 4 2 4 1 4 in the next deliveries he faced. I have been told the bat he used has a lot of dead spots, but Simon surely had a horrendous time finding them. The six he hit was his second in as many games, and the only ones I have seen on this ground. His knock of 32 from 19 balls was ended by a fine yorker from the opposition captain (or was it one of those dead spots?). Ani by that time had kept him good company and had got out to one that kept low. Mahanth replaced Ani and got a few useful runs, but skied one only to find the single person in the opposition team selected for fielding skills - Herschelle Gibbs.... who looked good enough in the field to catch it with two fingers.
Meanwhile, Satish had come in after Simon's exit, joined shortly after by one of the all time cricketing greats as far as Sweden is concerned. As the big and mean looking Oskar Brattström took guard (outside offstump, I believe), fielders subconciously dropped deeper. Oskar hammered the ball around, but by some quirk of fate never managed to clear either short extra cover or silly mid off. As the first two overs of his tonking didn't cause too much perceptible damage, fielders slowly got bolder and came in. The scorers were on the edge of their seats by now. Eventually Oskar decided he had gotten his eye in, and deftly edged one wide of the keeper to record one of the highest scores by a Sandinavian in the league (although Oskar himself holds the record with a two). He was soon done in by an unplayable beaut - medium pace, keeping straight and bouncing as expected.
Satish looked unflustered from the beginning, rarely getting beaten and kept the score board ticking with some singles. Alex Eggeman, our new keeper-batsman joined him.
FACT 3: Satish ran a single after hitting one down the ground and was called back for a second. Figuring there was plenty of time to get back, he decided to figure skate to his end. The pitch was deceptively flat, and he lost balance midway to land on his ass with a loud thud. The eagle-eyed Eggeman quickly realised the urgency of the situation and suggested he get back on his feet and get back to where he came from. Satish was lightning quick to recover, but alas his attempts to skate back to safety were nullified by another big thud and a direct throw. Moral of the story: Unlike everything else in cricket, a run is called so for a good reason (its not a 'point' as Oskar perseveres to convince us), and other modes of transport egs. walk, skate, crawl, roll, etc are less efficient.
Tom, the all-rounder, joined Alex and they had a productive partnership, keeping the asking rate at around 7. Alex scored freely and made 20 off 15. Things started heating up once Alex decided to get back to the comfort of the pavilion and Antony joined. The light was fading fast, but luckily the pace of their bowlers was fading too. The run rate needed was just a little over run-a-ball, with yours truly and Captain Chandler aka Captain Ramraj aka John Lott padded up. The captain's calm facial composure belied his nerves evidenced by the rhythmic staccatto of his spikes on the floor. The scoreboard was duly updated by Oskar/me after every ball, between balls and before every ball, but the batsman apparently didnt bother looking - they knew exactly what was needed. 20 needed off 3 overs turned to 6 needed off the last over, with Antony on strike. The first ball was a dought. The captain's foot-tapping got quicker.... The second was dispatched behind square leg for four to loud cheering (mainly from our side). And the match was won with three balls to spare afer a two off the next one.
What a game! The first victory of the season. As Eggeman said later in the pub, in keeping with our time-honoured tradition of winning a game every season (at least since I joined), we can now put victory behind us and concentrate on enjoying the remaining games without pressure. To summarize the match, our bowling was a little wayward, but overall pretty decent. The fielding was of good standards throughout and almost all catches were taken, with or without juggling stunts depending on the fielder's career aspirations. Eggeman's keeping was tight, and exceptional for a debutant. All batsman contributed to the score, but the final nerve-wracking partnership between Tom & Antony, the fantastic 32 by Simon, the quickfire 20 by Eggeman and of course the electifying bowling by man-of-the-match Tom were the highlights. Thanks to all our guest stars - Tom, Ani, Satish and Mahanth. If its one thing we have learned, it is that Zoology is unbeatable as long as less than half the team is Zoology-based.
ullasa
The day before the game 5 players had signed up and Matt sensibly sent out a mail saying we might need a few more to make a game out of it. I was about to head to the streets looking out for subcontinental faces, but a couple of my Indian friends (Satish & Mahanth) called in the nick of time to say they could play. Meanwhile Antony, our new Zoology recruit, chatted up a couple of random blokes who had heard about the game called cricket (Tom and Ani) and signed them up, bringing the team total to 10. We reached Queens ground with grey skies threatening to rain and hearts filled with sadness at the loss of Simon Baxter. Matt won the toss and cleverly opted to field first, knowing that batting has always been Zootallurgy's strength. As luck would have it, it started raining just before the scheduled start of play. Not knowing who was playing for which team, we got around to socializing with friends and foes alike to while away time. The rains eased by about 6:17, Tom bowled a few on the pitch, and having confirmed they bounced above knee height, a 16-over-aside game was decided upon. Perhaps Captain Matt Chandler's crystal ball told him something about events to unfold, for he had changed into The Official Zoology Captain's Vest, sponsored by Ramraj Banian Co, in tune with their motto.
With sawdust liberally sprinked on the pitch in places where I normally never place my foot, I opened the show gingerly from the road-opposite end, beginning with a full toss that was dispatched for a couple. The new ball now looked like it had been rescued from drowning. After some heavy duty wiping, I decided to use the pitch the next ball, and banged it in short, which went 2 meters above the batsman. As the next ball was hooked away to the boudary with ease, the ominous signs of erratic bowling brought an audible hush to the field. Luckily things improved with the tighter second over Matt bowled from the road end. Beating the bat with some good deliveries now and then, and mixing them up with rank bad short balls, I managed to prise out the freely scoring opener who was caught behind deftly by our debutant wicket-keeper Alex Eggeman. He was replaced (not Alex, the batsman) by a Herschelle Gibbs look-alike. What with the wet ball and slippery run-ups, the bowling was less tidy than usual, but Matt was the better of the two openers and ended up with 4-0-22-0, whereas I got 4-0-28ish-1. The opposition were 54-1 at the halfway stage.
FACT 1: The throw from mid off to try and run Herschelle Gibbs out was hurled in at 103.96 mph. Having valiantly stopped it with my heel and nonchalantly continued discharging my cricketing duties for the rest of the day, I feel considerably more stupid the next morning limping around like the three-legged camel in children's movies.
Matt played by the rules and refused to let me bowl after my quota of 4 overs. In came debutant Antony as replacement. His left-arm bowling was fiercely quick, but otherwise in similar vein to that of mine wrt mixing up full tosses, bouncers, peaches, plums, etc. Antony later informed me he was out of practice; with a little of this in his arsenal, he will surely serve Zootallurgy well. Welcome Antony! The batsmen respectfully defended or got beaten by the good ones and dispatched the crap ones, as they had been doing the whole day. If we thought Antony was quick, Tom was even quicker, much more accurate and was by far the best bowler of the day. He ripped out wickets at regular intervals, clean bowling his first three victims.
FACT 2: We all know Matt Chandler is retiring at the end of the season to join the circus. He did treat us to his juggling skills before finally taking a catch to give Tom his fourth wicket.
Simon Martin took a stunning low catch in the deep for Tom's fifth wicket to end the opposition innings at 105. Tom got 5 for 15 or so, not sure what Antony got. Extras and overthrows were quite a few, none of which detracts from Eggeman's fine performance behind the stumps, though.
Opening the innings with the calm, composed, and technically sound Ani, Simon seemed to want to end our innings inside 5 overs. The first couple of overs from their opening bowlers were tight, with no looseners and hardly a bad delivery. But the looseners arrived belatedly in the third over and Simon took full toll by smashing 6 4 2 4 1 4 in the next deliveries he faced. I have been told the bat he used has a lot of dead spots, but Simon surely had a horrendous time finding them. The six he hit was his second in as many games, and the only ones I have seen on this ground. His knock of 32 from 19 balls was ended by a fine yorker from the opposition captain (or was it one of those dead spots?). Ani by that time had kept him good company and had got out to one that kept low. Mahanth replaced Ani and got a few useful runs, but skied one only to find the single person in the opposition team selected for fielding skills - Herschelle Gibbs.... who looked good enough in the field to catch it with two fingers.
Meanwhile, Satish had come in after Simon's exit, joined shortly after by one of the all time cricketing greats as far as Sweden is concerned. As the big and mean looking Oskar Brattström took guard (outside offstump, I believe), fielders subconciously dropped deeper. Oskar hammered the ball around, but by some quirk of fate never managed to clear either short extra cover or silly mid off. As the first two overs of his tonking didn't cause too much perceptible damage, fielders slowly got bolder and came in. The scorers were on the edge of their seats by now. Eventually Oskar decided he had gotten his eye in, and deftly edged one wide of the keeper to record one of the highest scores by a Sandinavian in the league (although Oskar himself holds the record with a two). He was soon done in by an unplayable beaut - medium pace, keeping straight and bouncing as expected.
Satish looked unflustered from the beginning, rarely getting beaten and kept the score board ticking with some singles. Alex Eggeman, our new keeper-batsman joined him.
FACT 3: Satish ran a single after hitting one down the ground and was called back for a second. Figuring there was plenty of time to get back, he decided to figure skate to his end. The pitch was deceptively flat, and he lost balance midway to land on his ass with a loud thud. The eagle-eyed Eggeman quickly realised the urgency of the situation and suggested he get back on his feet and get back to where he came from. Satish was lightning quick to recover, but alas his attempts to skate back to safety were nullified by another big thud and a direct throw. Moral of the story: Unlike everything else in cricket, a run is called so for a good reason (its not a 'point' as Oskar perseveres to convince us), and other modes of transport egs. walk, skate, crawl, roll, etc are less efficient.
Tom, the all-rounder, joined Alex and they had a productive partnership, keeping the asking rate at around 7. Alex scored freely and made 20 off 15. Things started heating up once Alex decided to get back to the comfort of the pavilion and Antony joined. The light was fading fast, but luckily the pace of their bowlers was fading too. The run rate needed was just a little over run-a-ball, with yours truly and Captain Chandler aka Captain Ramraj aka John Lott padded up. The captain's calm facial composure belied his nerves evidenced by the rhythmic staccatto of his spikes on the floor. The scoreboard was duly updated by Oskar/me after every ball, between balls and before every ball, but the batsman apparently didnt bother looking - they knew exactly what was needed. 20 needed off 3 overs turned to 6 needed off the last over, with Antony on strike. The first ball was a dought. The captain's foot-tapping got quicker.... The second was dispatched behind square leg for four to loud cheering (mainly from our side). And the match was won with three balls to spare afer a two off the next one.
What a game! The first victory of the season. As Eggeman said later in the pub, in keeping with our time-honoured tradition of winning a game every season (at least since I joined), we can now put victory behind us and concentrate on enjoying the remaining games without pressure. To summarize the match, our bowling was a little wayward, but overall pretty decent. The fielding was of good standards throughout and almost all catches were taken, with or without juggling stunts depending on the fielder's career aspirations. Eggeman's keeping was tight, and exceptional for a debutant. All batsman contributed to the score, but the final nerve-wracking partnership between Tom & Antony, the fantastic 32 by Simon, the quickfire 20 by Eggeman and of course the electifying bowling by man-of-the-match Tom were the highlights. Thanks to all our guest stars - Tom, Ani, Satish and Mahanth. If its one thing we have learned, it is that Zoology is unbeatable as long as less than half the team is Zoology-based.
ullasa
The resemblance is uncanny..
ReplyDeleteIf your circus career doesn't work you, you can always be a model for banian companies in India
ReplyDelete