Semi Final vs Dream Team

The date was 17th July 2006.

We finished first on the ladder with Dream Team second and Eureka Diggers and Bulls third and fourth.

The Eureka Diggers were set 98 by the Bulls and made the total easily. They had 119 after three pairs and finished on 129.

The Major failed to post the final ladder for our grade.

Our lineup tonight included Bendy, Dave, Cap'n Bob, The Don, The King, Pax, Daints and myself.

Cap'n Bob won the toss and elected to field. We made a real good start to the game with some early wickets, and had the score at -3 after the first over. The second over conceeded 11. Pax bowled the third over and had some wickets bringing the score back to 3. I bowled the 4th over and didn't do to well. The balls I bowled straight were hit towards the back net. I conceeded 20 from the over. Which took their first partnership to 23. There second pair had two good overs in the middle which allowed them to get the score upto and past 50, before ending the pair on 50. The third pair took the made 6 from the first over they faced, then I bowled the next over. My over got one wicket with Pax taking the catch, but I still conceeded 17 runs. The lost some more wickets in the third and then made 20 from their last over. The partnership was 39. Their final pair took the score past 100 but then lost several wickets in the final two overs, which included a re-bowled ball that took a wicket on the last ball. The batsmen threw his bat, and if the umpire saw it, he might have deducted another 5 runs for that. They finished with the score on 83. Our previous encounter with these guys, they made 89 and we lost by 19.

Bendy and Dave batted first in this game and had a slowish start with some early runouts, they had 1 run from the first over. They started getting things together a bit more in the second over making 12, then 6 from the third and another 8 from the 4th over. For a partnership of 27.

Cap'n Bob and Little Mahstar came in a struggled a little, the bat made contact with the ball a few times which only resulted in some catches, we had -5 from our first over. The next over was bowled by the guy that was wearing a blue top. The rest of the team were in white, we reckon they should have lost 5 runs for the uniform, but the umpire said that he had a white top underneath. It's a little silly that they can wear the colour underneath something else. Anyway, Bob played some good shots, but I wasn't able to get the ball away, and the fielders decided to crowd me. I was caught once and runout, we had -4 from the over. The third over we faced the bowler was real quick to Bob. The first one was a nice bouncer, which we couldn't score from. The third ball of the over we had to run on. Bob wasn't worried as the keeper wasn't gloving the ball anyway. So I got on strike, then the bowler did the sporting thing and decided to bowl slower to me. I hit one that was caught from to take the team score to 14. Bob got another two from the last ball of the over for an over total of -2. The blue top guy bowled the last over to us, and we slowly got the score back up again past 20. We scored two from the last ball for a partnership of -5.

The Don and The King batted third pair as usual. They made 8 from the first over they faced. Some wickets, kept the score fluctuating between 27 and 35. Some nice shots were played and some close runouts were taken which left their partnership on 9. Pax and Daints needed 54 for the win and took 19 from the first over they faced. The next two overs they took 7 runs from each and a final 8 in the last over. Pax hit a few sevens during their partnership of 41. Daints hit some nice drives, one which was dropped but was a good stop.

Some highlights were some great keeping work by Daints and Pax, catches by Bendy, The Don and Pax, other fielding efforts by The King and Cap'n Bob saw some runouts given. Little Mahstar made one stop that I remember which saved a run.

We'll see who the votes goto tonight. It's a little tough to call I think.
Having lost by 11 runs, we now have to play the Eureka Diggers on Thursday at 7:50pm. I'm not sure if Dave and I will be able to make the game due to starting Basketball this Thursday. If we win then we'll be playing the Dream Team again next monday. We really do things the hard way don't we. I chocked a little with my bowling tonight. The taunting by the opposition isn't to nice either. I try to ignore it but it's always in the mind to some level.

Time to submit my votes.