Venturers Vs Rotork, Wednesday May 13th

Rotork 148-8 (20), Venturers 148-7 (20)

Play-Cricket Results

It was cold at Odd Down, and there were only ten of us when play started. Ajeet nevertheless bowled a maiden: then Chirag arrived, and we had eleven fielders and went at a steady seven an over for the rest of the innings. The wind was gusty and there were frequent interruptions while we chased hats, mostly Gregory’s and Bruce’s, across the ground. To save time, we agreed to bowl ten overs from each end consecutively, and not to rebowl wides and no-balls except in the last over. As they had a left-right opening pair, we still had to change the field a lot.

Rotork is a work side, so they have a few actual cricketers and some occasionals. Their clothing got more and more exotic as we worked through the batting, culminating in a red tartan donkey jacket. They had five good batsmen. Krish bowled two of them and caught a third, very close to the boundary but exactly according to Gregory’s plan. Another, later in the innings, was run out by Joji’s direct hit, trying to get back on strike. The fifth did not last long before he was LBW aiming a huge wipe at Gregory, but more memorable was the huge wipe earlier in the over. He missed that too, tottered, spun round, grabbed at a bail to prevent himself from falling, fortunately missed the bail, and ended up in the wicket-keeper’s position, staring at his just about still intact stumps. If he had been a bit bulkier, say more the build of Inzamam-ul-Haq, he would have been out. (Search “Panesar to Inzamam”, and watch it in slow motion.) Bruce and Joji worked their way through the lower middle order.

After the runout we should probably just have got Ajeet and Joji to finish things off, but instead we tried Gregory, who did nothing; Siddhant, who also did nothing but also did nothing wrong; and, for the final over, Bruce. Bruce wasn’t very expensive, but he bowled a couple of wides, which because it was the final over had to be rebowled, and that also cost runs. The trouble with bowling from one end all the time, though, is that there isn’t the usual parity check. A recount established that it had in fact been the nineteenth over. We agreed that they should also rebowl wides in the nineteenth over, and Chirag began the twentieth. It was very cold now. Chirag has a long run-up. Seven minutes, twelve runs and eleven balls later, five of them wides, without even looking like getting the eighth wicket, we finally concluded. We were chasing 151, but that was readjusted to 148 by anulling Bruce’s rebowlings of wides. It turned out that the rule about only rebowling in the twentieth over had been programmed into the scoring software, and nobody could work out how to change it.

Krish and Jonathan put up 43 for the first wicket in just over five overs. Jonathan’s share was two, and then he swept a straight ball and missed. To be fair, there had been an accurate opening bowler and an inaccurate one, and he had been at the accurate end mostly. Krish picked out a fielder soon afterwards, and things slowed a bit. Steve and Siddhant attempted a ridiculous run – there was no misunderstanding, they both went for it – and Steve was run out by about five yards. Siddhant and Vibhor (who had kept wicket efficiently) somehow added 43 while making only 23 between them: Rotork had a policy of giving almost everybody two overs, and that led to a lot of wides. Indeed, one over consisted of four wides, a no-ball, and a two by Siddhant off something that would have been a wide if he had let it go. It should really have been six no-balls, as the bowler’s action was blatantly illegal, but as the ball barely reached the other end even if it did happen to go in that direction, we let it pass.

By now, though, we needed forty off five overs, and they brought real bowlers on. Vibhor also got run out, Siddhant miscued, Rubbaniy connected once but never got going, and was eventually bowled. From the last three overs we needed 28, with Joji and Chirag batting. Joji ran singles energetically, but he is faster than Chirag and they couldn’t be made into twos. Chirag occasionally hit it further, and there were a few more wides. If the ones in the nineteenth over had had to be rebowled, we might have won, even allowing for the extra runs from Bruce’s nineteenth over, but the sofware had spoken. Instead we came to the last over needing eight, with the accurate opening bowler back on. Joji got a single; Chirag missed but so did the keeper, yielding one bye; Joji got a single; Chirag got the ball far enough down the ground for Joji to get back for two.

Two balls, three runs. Chirag’s straight hit almost reached the boundary, and there were two available easily, but not three. With hindsight, the right thing to do was to push for the third regardless: if they messed up and Chirag got home, we would win, and if not, Joji would be on strike needing a single, with Ajeet to run it. Instead we left it to Chirag, which would have been the right thing to do if more than one had been needed. He swung, missed and was bowled, leaving the match tied.