16th July 2007 – Semi Final vs Plaster Masters.

During the season we found it hard to be competitive against this team with just one close match that we lost by a single run.

This time we had to chase the runs down, and were set a substantial total of 121. Our bowling and fielding wasn’t to bad overall with no single over conceding more than 16 runs and we picked up 10 wickets during the innings.

Their first pair made 36 with Thorpe (7), Pax (5), Mahstar (12) and King (12) delivering the ball. We picked up two runouts and a catch in the first three overs which prevented the pair from making 50. Bruce and the Don got the runouts and Bob took the catch.

The second pair put on 24 runs with Bruce (0), Mahstar (16), Philbert (4) and The Don (4) taking the ball. Bob took a catch from Bruce’s bowling and Pax got a runout when the Don was bowling. Phil got a wicket by bowling the guy. The pair only reached the back net three times with two 4s and a seven, as they scored mostly in 2s.

The third pair made 29 runs with Bob (15), Pax (14), Thorpe (-5) and Bruce (5) trying to regain control. They were getting away a bit with 89 on the board after 10 overs, but two wickets in thorpe’s over with a stumping and a runout by Bruce kept us in it. When Bruce got a stumping with the first ball of his over they were back to 79, but managed to get back upto 89.

The final pair put on 32 as some dodgey umpiring decisions cost us some potential wickets. Philbert (7), The King (8), Cap’n (9) and The Don (8) were given the ball. A catch by The King from Philbert’s third ball was the only wicket we were given in the four overs. The pair made the runs without scoring higher than a two from any ball.

Any score over 100 is tough to chase down particularly in a finals situation, and Philbert with the King were given the responsibility of setting us up. They were doing well with 12 from the first over and had the score to 19 before consecutive runouts at the end of the second over and the start of the third over dropped the score to 9. They recovered slightly in the third over before the King was caught and then two more runouts in the fourth over had our score back to 1. They ended the over on 4 which made it extremely difficult to chase the score down against a good side. Philbert made 15 from 13 legal deliveries but got out once and faced one wide. The King made 12 from 10 legal deliveries but lost 4 wickets .

Cap’n Bob and Mahstar came in and made 11 from their first over which included a couple of wides and a 3 from Bob. Bob was bowled twice in the next over which prevented a charge on the digits. A three at the start of the third over which included a stolen run helped us gain 7 in the over. When Mahstar was runout in the final over it prevented us to keep the score over 20. The pair made 15 runs with Bob making 21 from 13 legal deliveries, but lost two wickets. Mahstar made 5 from 8 legal deliveries, but lost one wicket and faced two noballs.

So we needed a further 103 runs in 8 overs to win and Bruce along with The Don gave it their best shot. They slowly built the runs with 7 and then 6 from their first two overs before their attack in the last two overs. They managed to keep their wickets in tact and a seven and four and a three by Bruce gained them 13 and 18 in the last two overs. The don played a back seat roll a little bit just keeping the strike changing. They made 44 for the pair with Bruce making 26 from 11 legal deliveries, and faced one wide. The Don made 10 from 10 legal deliveries and faced two wides.

Needing 59 runs for victory proved to be a little to much for our star pair on this occasion. Pax and Thorpe came in needing some big hitting and continuing rotation of the strike. This proved to be a tough task against some accurate fielding and some bad umpiring decisions. They were runout three times in the first over which left them with 69 to get in three overs. They got 10 runs in the next over before Thorpe was runout. Another runout at the start of the next over had the score back to 53 again. After that they didn’t lose anymore wickets and some big shots started to pay off. Thorpe hit a 7 and a 4 in the final two overs and Pax also hit a four as they got the score upto 81.

So we lost this game by 40 runs which meant we were to play the prelim final two days later. Part of the problem in this match was the straight hitting which aided in the resulting 10 runouts that we had when batting. We got just four runouts when fielding.
King and Bob both took catches but it wasn’t really enough in the whole scheme of the game.