On another glorious day at the ICC, the Darjeeling side arrived early to discover that their match was delayed by an hour. This left them with a dilemma, should they stay and watch the England Lions training in the nets or should they go for a pre-match drink. After much deliberation and debate it was decided that a beverage was the lesser of two evils and so the boys begrudgingly trudged off to “enjoy” some refreshment.
When it was finally game time, Shugie was chosen as the man to do the toss, with Jono being an awful tosser this season so far. Shugie came back to the changing rooms with the news that everyone wanted to hear, we would be batting, greeted with woops, cheers and back slaps. Later we found out that he had actually lost the toss but we were inserted by the oppo!
Rhys and Jono started up, compiling a brilliant opening partnership of 69 from the first 10 overs, putting us in a great position to be able to push on with 15 overs still to go. Jono was very unlucky to be caught and bowled from a well struck drive from the first ball of the 11th over for a well compiled 25 from 26 balls. This brought Blikkies to the crease, who was tasked with upping the run rate, however, leather contacting willow proved to be an issue and he swiftly departed for 7 off 9 balls. Watto then entered the action and pushed the scoring on, with Rhys at the other end playing some sublime shots through the off side. Just as things were looking well placed for a final assault on the Wombats Yellow bowlers, Watto was run out after being called through for a run and Rhys staying put in his crease. A classic case of “Yes, No, Maybe, Sorry!” Tom Kimber came in and tried to get us up to a decent score but struggled to time the ball, with Rhys finally departing for a superb 91 from 68 balls. The middle order came and went without many runs added and the score petered out to 182-7, about 20-30 runs short of a good score.
Dave and Ben opened the bowling and aimed to keep the scoring rate down whilst also picking up a few crucial wickets. Dave kept it expertly tight and got an important wicket with a caught and bowled, bowling his 5 overs with figures of 1-30. Shugie entered the attack and immediately struck to leave Wombats Yellow reeling on 44 for 2. However, Wombats Yellow counter attacked playing some lusty shots against Rhys, Shugie and Blikkies, pushing the score onto 86 in the 11th over, only requiring another 97 from 14 overs. In an over of madness the momentum shifted dramatically with the two set batsmen holing out to Watto in the deep and then Blikkies taking a sky-er at cover from the very next ball, leaving the opposition at 86 for 4 and DCC with a real chance of snatching a vital victory. The extremely vocal opposition support was suddenly silenced and DCC sensed that this was their opportunity. Big Mike had been trudging in like a reliable old tractor from the School End keeping the run rate low and then removed two of their batsmen in the same over due to a great catch by Thomas Mariadason out of the sun and then a caught behind off a lifting delivery that caught the batsman’s gloves. At this stage DCC had the game in their hands with the Wombats on 130-6, but they still had 8 and a half overs to go and only needed to go at a run a ball. In came one of the most obnoxious cricketers you will ever meet. The first ball he faced he bunted it down the ground to long off and stated that he should have smashed that one for six! A few overs later he hit a Rhys delivery down the ground for 4 and celebrated by waving his bat above his head like he had just won the Ashes. A Ben no ball, leading to a free hit was dispatched for six over square leg but the arrogant batsman at the non-strikers end even had a go at his partner because he didn’t hit it where he told him to. Then he decided to get his partner to call out where he was going to “smash” the next delivery, leading to some unpleasant scenes by both teams due to this idiot’s poor cricket etiquette. The game ended on quite a sour note, with DCC losing with 16 balls left and 4 wickets still needed.
DCC now have 3 wins and 3 losses from their opening fixtures. We are all hoping for a great end to the 2016 season and go into the new year with a run of victories under our belts and a solid position in the table.