9th July 2007 vs Black Hill Steve's

This team have become a tough challenge for us, after earlier games winning by more than 20 runs. Our previous game was when Pax and Thorpe chased down 68 to win the match.

They chose to batt first and their first pair made 17 runs with the overs bowled by The Don (7), Philbert (2), King (1), and Mahstar (7). There was a runout in Phil's over, King Bowled a guy and Mahstar's over was a bit on both sides of the wicket, but his final ball beat the batter and got him stumped.

There second pair started by losing 5 runs cause one player was out of uniform. Thorpe (-5) bowled to them first and got two wickets (bowled and runout). Mahstar (10) took then next over and got a runout when the batter was fooled into running and Pax took the bails off. The rest of the over saw a 7, 3, 4 and single. Pax (12) and King (6) had the next two overs which saw one more catch by Bruce. The score on the board was 35 after the pair.

The third pair lost 10 runs for uniform, but this didn't matter to them much as they had Malpass batting for them and he was in form. Bruce (11), Bob (15), Pax (22), and Philbert (11) were the unlucky bowlers. We were unable to pick up a wicket but had a few close calls that went against us. They hit two 7s, three 4s, four 3s and a five as they got the score upto 84. Which was a partnership of 49, but they actually got 59 with the -10 for uniform.

The final pair lost 5 runs for uniform, and also had a real bad start when King took a stunning jackpot catch in the corner. Bruce (-3), Cap'n Bob (1), Thorpe (16) and The Don (10) had the ball. Bruce got two wickets with a catch and stumping, Bob got two wickets with a catch to Thorpe and a catch to himself. They hit three 7s in the partnership of 19.

We were set 104 for victory, which can be a tough score to chase.
Philbert and King got 17 from the first over, and another 9 from the second over. The only setback came in the third over when Phil was caught, and scored just a single in the over. They scored a further 6 runs in their last over for a total of 28. Phil made 20 from 16 legal deliveries, but lost one wicket and faced two wides. King hit 9 runs from 6 legal deliveries.

Cap'n Bob and Mahstar started with jackpot 2 doubled to 4 runs, but then Mahstar struggled a bit and was bowled after facing a wide and ending the over with two dot balls. We lost a wicket in each of the next three overs, with two runouts and another bowled. Bob hit a five and four as we finished with the score on 40 for a partnership of 12. Bob made 18 from 9 legal deliveries, but lost two wickets and faced a wide. Mahstar made 8 from 12 legal deliveries, but lost two wickets and faced a wide and noball.

The Don and Bruce had a minor setback in their first over when Bruce was caught, but they netted 8 runs from the over. The next over saw Bruce stumped but also hit a five for a net 6 runs. The Don was runout at the start of the next over, but they recovered with several 2s and singles for the remainder of their innings as they got the score to 64 and a partnership of 24. The Don made 13 from 10 legal deliveries, but got out once and faced a noball. Bruce made 22 from 12 legal deliveries, but lost two wickets and faced a wide.

We were 20 runs behind the comparision score after 12 overs, and needing 40 runs to win.

Pax and Thorpe had that in mind when they came in as well as what happened the previous time we played them. They hit just one five in the innings as they cruised upto the target with two balls remaining, aided by five extras and losing no wickets. Pax was able to block out the final two balls as we were 4 runs in front.
The partnership was 43 runs with Pax making 21 from 12 legal deliveries and faced a wide, while Thorpe made 12 from 7 legal deliveries and faced three wides and a noball. We won by four runs, and this meant the difference between finishing 2nd or 3rd on the ladder before the finals.

I think Hacks who had been second on the ladder must have withdrawn as they didn't play that week and didn't play the finals.