A Chuffing Draw

Cambridge Tamil Sangam 124/7 (Chanrasekar 30*, Sivakumar 26, Bennet 3-18) DREW with The Jags 124/5 (Barker 21*, Ranjit 17, Nagadev 2-15)

Man of the Match - Bennett

We have drawn before, but this is the first time I can remember in a long long time. This team is a new one on us, I understand they are a Tamil disapora, mainly from mainland India originally. Nice fellas. Queens, we bloody lost the toss again, so as sure as day follows night we were put into field. A slightly makeshift XI saw Paul Cooper make his Jags debut. 

Bennett and Savage got things underway, Bennett was on one this week, as he has been of late. He was aided by getting a wicket early with Ant catching a screamer at slip above his head. Ant and Tyler even made friends briefly as a results of this. 

How an Ant and Bennett friendship might look

Tyler was bowling that scary stuff he does sometimes, so the batsmen tried to go at Savage a bit more than him. Paul Cooper replaced Savage debuting for the Jags took a while to find his line, and then bowled a man off full toss that he somehow re-directed onto his own wickets via an edge I believe. 

This lead to the moment of the night, or indeed any night.

Tyler bowled a full length ball and the batsman nailed a wallop over mid off. Chris Mailes set off to try and field it. The batsmen didn't run, confident of the 4 that was coming, Chris stumbled, then dived and grasped the ball millimeters from the turf at full stretch. The batman was absolutely incredulous, and stood there in disbelief for a full 10 seconds before trudging off. 

The rest of the innings saw Chris demonstrate that he was also in fact human and dropping an absolute dolly a few balls later.  

This week we had regular Morgs back, no doubt encouraged by not having to bowl after Ant, and he mixed up some fantastic lines, with strong economy and a bowled full toss for good measure. Freddie absolutely nailed a direct hit run out - pausing before absolutely murdered the stumps and Savage, having taken a little bit of tap in his early overs, managed to pull it back by switching his line and nailing a death over. I was dinged at the end by the opposition, as a batsman hit it to deep square and it stopped, I picked it up and threw it in and they were adamant that I had crossed the line making it a 4, with two of their guys actually getting down on the ground to look for the spike mark. 

Gents, I did not cross the line, and this is not McEnroe at Wimbledon. Also, to anyone who knows me, can you imagine me even thinking about cheating? There is more chance of Ant becoming an MP.

Ant and I started things off, getting a few first over, before Ant tucked in to the second over like Homer Simpson at an all you can eat buffet. 3 consecutive 4's were plundered and he then turned down a single to leave me on the strike to the other bowler, who had been a bit quicker. 

"All you can eat" is a lie

I then took a gentle single on my way to my highest score of June or July, 9. Woohoo. This left Ant to get himself out, playing one on by fishing wide of off when he could have left well enough alone. 

Chris joined me in the middle for a bit and the rapid early scoring meant we were on for an easy chase. Once again, it got dark quickly. I fell LBW, sad to be out, but glad of spending more time at the crease than it took to walk to and from it. Chris and Freddie got going, Chris hitting some good stuff, and Freddie running well. There was some calamity, pushing back for a tight but gettable second, Chris was run out by a direct hit. Barker did the inevitable and moved the scoring rapidly along. Freddie fell very unfortunately, he absolutely nailed a beauty to cow, but picked probably the only fielder that could have held it.

We looked on for the chase here, comfortable really, Barker in the middle, Ranjit joining him, but it was very very dark at this point. This time of year, winning the toss is key. We then just stopped scoring. Dot dot dot dot dot, single. Dot dot dot dot dot, single, was the passage of play for two overs. We then did a little bit of scoring, a nice shot behind square from Ranjit and Barker doing Barker things, and trying to run singles and 2's when the opportunity presented itself.

We were still well on for the chase at 18 needed from 24, plenty of players to come at 4 down, and then... you know what happened. Lots and lots of dots, and the odd single, to leave us needing 13 from 15, I mean easy right. Well nope.

We got 7 from the next 9 and there was a total of 6 to win from 6 balls. Still totally got this right boys. Loads of batters in the hutch, just don't go for dots. 

Oh dear, dot. 

Oh dear, wicket. Ranjit bowled. 

6 from 4 needed.

5 from 3.

Wide! 4 from 3.

2 runs from 2 balls.

Cooper with the task in the dark. 2 needed off 2, dot... and we pinched a single for a draw mainly as Barker understood the match situation and ran like he does.

A draw and some backchat from the opposition about how my boundary field had cost them the game. It didn't gents, our judicious application of dots, lack of urgency, and the dark skies cost us the game.

Good pub attendance again. We got pizza this week but it was slow. Ah well, more beer time and plenty of opportunity to chat with Mr Paul Yaxley about how utterly wonderful it sounds to be retired.