CROSSING THE SAHARA

We rolled up for the second week in a row to play Emmanuel at their Sahara desert like home ground at Scammel Reserve. Having been pipped at the post last week, we could be forgiven for asking the question “what are we going to do differently this week”. The short answer to that is that cricket is a funny game and no two games play out the exact same way.

I was sent out to open again with Ragu Prabhakaran as my opening partner. Ragu played very well the week before and is a steadying influence out in the middle. We took one look at the pitch and immediately had concerns as it looked very green from all the rainfall during the week.

From the first over the ball was seaming about all over the place and bouncing at variable heights. Usually a nice trampoline bounce, but every now and again, one would keep low or bounce wildly after hitting a divot in the pitch.

I got off the mark with a controlled cut for a single. Then repeated the stroke soon after. I played a push to leg for a single and another push to cover for another single. However, most of the times it was hard to get a handle on the pitch as the ball was moving, bouncing and generally misbehaving. Ragu who is a free scoring batsman was also stymied by the vagaries of the green pitch.

After the tenth over, the Emmanuel captain started instructing his change bowlers to warm up and I started to breathe a sigh of relief knowing that soon enough I would be facing less suffecatingly accurate bowling than what I Ragu and I had to contend with thus far.

During the eleventh over, I already started to think “if I have survived unscathed so far for ten overs – I will bat at least twenty. If I can bat twenty, I can bat longer still and get a good score and get back on track”.

I negotiated the first few balls of Tait’s last over of his opening spell, content to just block him out when a ball pitched just short of a length suddenly exploded off the pitch as I was playing forwarded and was in a mille-second heading for my face. I instinctively raised my bat in front of my face and I felt I had done well to keep the bat remotely arched to send the ball downwards. The ball flew down to the right of second slip. The slip fieldsman dived and scooped up a remarkable catch less than a centimeter off the turf in his right hand.

A simply amazing catch.

The umpire conferred with square leg to ensure that the catch had carried, but I had already tucked my bat under my arm and I was making my way off by this stage as I had a good view of the catch and it certainly seemed to me that it had carried – just – to the second slip fieldsman who was sprawled out on the turf clasping the ball. Ragu was out caught behind almost straight away and we were suddenly 2 for 16 after twelve overs and in real bother.

Richie The Dragon Halpagoda was joined by new lad Danny Rowe a Welshman who has come to Australia on a working holiday with his wife. The pitch was such that the usually belligerent Dragon was subdued and was eventually dismissed for eight, but Danny Rowe was getting into full swing playing some lusty strokes.

Strachany joined Danny “Boy” Rowe and they put on a superb partnership worth seventy two with Dan playing some stupendous strokes to all points of Scammel Reserve. Strachany started off slowly and looked rather subdued, but as he got his eye in, he started to play some big strokes too and it was exciting cricket to watch.

The score steadily mounted when disaster struck as Danny Rowe was run out from a direct hit for a swash buckling sixty seven. It was a huge innings in terms of getting us back into this match. More importantly, he had weathered the early phase where the pitch was still seaming and then made Emmanuel pay. Barring the unfortunate run out, Danny Rowe would have marked his Yarras debut with a richly deserved century.

The score was now 4 for 120 and we still needed more runs to give our bowlers something to bowl at. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals, but Strachany heroically saw us through to 8 for 157 with his own score being thirty seven not out.

On that outfield, 157 was a reasonably good score. Opening our bowling were the two high schoolies Alex Harris – the hero of the game against Nationals before Christmas and James Allen a diminutive lad who would not put the fear of God into batsman with his school boy looks and lack of height.

However, both lads acquitted themselves superbly and were miserly in their opening salvos. In fact, James “Jock” Allen took four of the first wickets to fall (Alex Harris took the other) and James Allen subsequently finished the day with the superb figures of 5 for 23 while Alex “Bomber” Harris who bowled probably better finished with the tidy return of 1 for 14.

Emmanuel collapsed to be all out for 59 two overs before drinks handing us an unexpectedly easier than imagined win by ninety eight runs. Ian Chips Pringle and Johnny Scurry both picked up 2 for 10 and we had triumphed on a wicket that was playing at different heights.

A sweet victory!

I was only disappointed that having survived eleven difficult, eventful overs, I was dismissed by a freak ball and an even freakier catch. Some days luck does not smile on you in cricket.

See you all next week!
Vic Nicholas
MELBOURNE