"The 2013 grand final. The Popped Collars won the toss and got to chase - the option both teams seem to prefer."
Brad flipped a fifty cent coin, Rick called tails, it came up heads, Popped Collars fielded first.
"After again restricting the Gold Diggers to a gettable total..."
Gold Diggers looked to play solid, sensible cricket, but quality fielding and bowling from the Collars made even that a tough job. Gareth set the standard for the game by hitting the stumps with both his shots at the stumps in the first over, one resulting in a run-out. Sanjit bowled well, often at the body, restricting them to a lot singles as the batsmen to struggled to even get bat on it. Xavier was unlucky in his first over as two balls bobbed up on the off-side - one just short of Gareth, and one just over his head.
Gareth came away with the best figures of the match, Matt produced enough movement to cause trouble, Brad switched effectively between medium pace and spin, Rian was solid on the back net, stopping or catching most of the Gold Diggers few attempts to play big shots.
The partnerships were 23, 43 and 44, for a total of 110.
"...this time there was no mistake with the bat. Sensible stoke play all round and some good shots when required..."
Matt and Xavier opened with four overs of safe play. Only two balls were something other than a dot, one, two, or an extra. One was a wicket, and full toss hit for seven. They got away with one on the last ball, however; with double runs and a third-dot ball, Ronnie sent down a very wide leg-side. There was some confusion about whether to take a run as well, and the Gold Diggers dropped the return to the bowlers end, allowing Xavier to make his ground.
Brad took advantage of the weak link in the Gold Diggers attack, hitting his first non-wide delivery for seven and his second for a four. That first over produced 22 runs, and the Popped Collars started to look in control of the game. Brad picked off a few more back nets to be the top scorer for the match, and no wickets fell throughout the second pair.
"...saw the Popped Collars pass their target with one over to play..."
Gareth punched the first ball for high bouncing three, and scores were level with pretty much an entire pair left to play.
"...eventually winning by 11 runs..."
Gareth and Rian were not about to throw it away, or let the chance go by to contribute to a grand final winning performance. They were run out once in the final over, but played as solidly as the rest of the team had, and pushed on to give their team a 44 run win. Most of the difference in this game was in the field. Both teams batted sensibly and safely, but the Gold Diggers were below their usual performance in the field, and also bowled a lot of wides.
"...to claim the 2013 championship."
Of all the correct parts of the prediction, this was the most important. Quality red-and-black bags were awarded to the champions in a ceremony remarkably similar to last season. The runners-up got blue-and-black bags. But bags aside, it's all about the glory, and the Popped Collars have earned themselves plenty of that from this match.
Finally, in lieu of a team photo after the game, here's one we prepared earlier (and modified later).
Even the team mascot came to the party
Ok, so in the last post when I read "(story and scorecard TBC)", I clearly didn't actually read anything, instead parsing that sentence as "(story and scorecard to be written up in a later post)". Which, in a sense, is exactly what happened, I guess, but not how I had envisaged.
ReplyDeleteSo I say again, Well done chaps.
That's fine, because I read your last comment as "Well done on making the grand final"
ReplyDelete