Scorecard

With Super Sunday behind them Greenies 1 looked to bounce back with a win. Hector, Josh and Ledge were unavailable in came Seany C, Dickie & Carey.

When arriving at JPO in Nick Sellars' Venga Bus, it was brought to our attention that we had lost another bowler. Hoggy could not play as he had a virus (swine flu no doubt) and reassured Tommy that it wasn’t from a hard night boozing. So with Hoggy out, in came Texas. On his arrival Texas summed Hoggy up in one short sharp sentence “What a cu#t!!!!”.

With the team settled, Tommy won the toss for the 2nd week in a row and decided to bat. Out to the middle strolled Seany C and Nevels. There were a few amazed faces around the ground as Seany C took guard with no helmet. The first few overs were a mixture of wides, no balls and Conroy trying to decapitate Seany C with fast, short-pitched bowling. With the score at 15 Seany C hit an easy catch back to the bowler and we were one down.

Craig in and a solid partnership required from the Saffas. This was not the case as Craig managed a fine edge into the keeper's gloves, out for 4 (11). At 22/2, Nevels was batting well and VERY VERY slowly managing only 2 off 23 balls at a S/R of 8.

Tommy in and if ever a captain’s innings was required, now was it. Together with Nevels they started to rebuild the innings. Tommy played some cracking straight drives deciding the best way to play the bowling was to come down the wicket. Nevels had picked up the pace doubling his strike rate to 16. Then disaster struck - Nevels was struck on the foot by Tulloch and had to retired hurt. The little warrior limped off the field having battled out in the middle for 76 minutes scoring 9 off 52 balls (S/R 17).  Hard luck Nevels - still that's two fines for scoring under 10 and leaving the field.

At 51/2 and 22 overs left it was time for the middle order to have a teaspoon of concrete and harden the fu*k up. Not a chance… Rotsey was out bowled 4^th ball duck (2^nd week in a row) after missing a straight one then Steve was bowled for 2.  Now at 66/4 could Texas stop the mini collapse??? NO!  Out for 3 after trying to play a hook shot that Ricky Ponting would have struggled with. This was 77 short of what Texas had promised us in the Pavilion, what a …..

So with the Greenies struggling at 71/5, someone needed to support Tommy who was batting like a champion. That person was Faisal Ul Haq. Using a thigh pad as a chest protector, he marched to the middle still glowing from Pakistan’s 20/20 glory. For the next 10 overs they batted superbly for a partnership of 58 which include some fine quick singles and a massive six by Faisal. Texas does not recall Faisal hitting a six even though he was scoring.

Then on 49 Tommy came down the wicket… whack!!!! Only to be caught by a brilliant catch on the boundary by Conroy. Any other person and it would have been six. Well batted Tommy, take a bow!!! Faisal quickly followed for 20 leaving us at 130/7. The tail did their job to get us through to 158/8 with Dickie 11(10), Sellars 8(14) and Carey 4(3).

With 158 on the board we took to the field. Faisal and Carey opening up, bowling a tight opening spell. A few decisions didn’t go our way including an absolute plumb LBW. The batsman should have been walking. We toiled hard to drinks with only a run out to our credit but the game was still in the balance with Byrite 58/1 after 15.

After drinks Sellars came into the attack. First ball he managed to get one to turn, took the edge and Nevels took an amazing catch at first slip hoping on one foot. Three balls later Sellars struck again and Byrite were now 58/3. With Hoggy ill (pussy), Steve was called upon to bowl his 8 overs. During his first over Irving skied one down the ground to Craig who dropped a sitter. A few overs later Irving skied one to Carey who showed Craig how it was done, even though most of the team had him a 60/40 chance of catching it. Sellars clean bowled Hall next over and it was anybody's game with Byrite 89/5 with 16 overs left.

We battled really hard to the next drinks break but could not pick up another wicket. Wight and Taylor batted well only offering a couple of sharp catches. After drinks Wight was run out but the damage was done with a partnership of 59. Byrite knocked off the remaining runs with a 6 straight down the ground to win by 4 wickets.

The bowlers bowled well with Faisal 0-20 off 8 including a maiden and Sellars took 3-19 off 8 with a maiden too. There were only 8 wides of which Carey bowled 6. Great effort guys but as the doctor was to say later on “the bowling attack just lacked a bit of fire power.” 

Tommy provided the fine bottle which was straight rum. Thank god it was only half full!!!!

MOTM – Tommy. Great innings of 49. Made it look very easy in the middle and played some super shots. 
COTD – Rotsey. Tried to smash Tulloch through the covers first ball he faced and missed the straight one…. Bowled… out… two duck in two weeks.
POTD – Nevels. Catch at first slip was something that Matthew Hayden/Mark Taylor would have been proud of. 
GOTD – Craig for his boat shoes - they were really something.