Played at Southgate
Report by Steve Hamilton
For this fixture we were blessed with glorious golden sunshine
and clear blue skies. The temperature was hitting 28C.
We
needed to bounce back immediately after our previous weekend’s
defeat against Cincinnati. We had to show fighting spirit and that
we were not carrying any emotional baggage from that traumatic
encounter.
What could have been the perfect start to our day
turned out to be the opposite. We lost the toss and were put in to
field in the blistering heat!
Adding to our pain, we only had
ten men with one arriving 40 minutes late after the cab driver
dropped him 30 minutes away from the venue.
Nonetheless,
Umair Shahzad got us off to a sensational start. He was swinging the
ball around corners as usual and the Southgate Adelaide batsman had
no answers! Umair took a wicket in his first and second over, clean
bowling both Cox for a duck and then their captain Elwood for one.
Next we witnessed a superb piece of fielding from the youthful
Asad Saleemi at cover. He rapidly picked up the ball and with a
bullet arm threw it just above the bails. The guy who seems to be
everywhere whenever something happens - Mo Junaid - took the bails
off effortlessly and we had them crumbling at 6 for 3 off 4 overs.
Mr ‘Chinos’ Frisby continues to deliver those magic balls and
was soon rewarded with a wicket in his first over. He tempted young
Radomsky into a big shot which just skied the ball to cover where
Jakaria Ahmed took a nonchalant catch.
Talal Ali bowled a
tidy spell and took out the leg stump of their threatening batsman
Tararis for 15. Talal is now just one wicket behind the tally of 18
held by our leading wicket taker Jakaria Ahmed. The next wicket to
fall was Hammond for 13 to a delivery from the ever-reliable
Mohammed Rashid. The batter mistimed his shot, sending the ball
straight to Umair who took a simple catch at mid on.
Our
fielding performance was in massive contrast to our last fixture: we
had two run outs, we were stopping boundaries, we were taking
catches and preventing silly quick singles; also no fumbles in the
field, not even from me!
What followed next will go down in
Old Fallopians history. The moment will live long in the memories of those
who witnessed it.
I was fielding at my specialist square leg
position and was totally unaware of the situation at the wicket as I
was chatting with the umpire. Suddenly, the ball came in my
direction at a rate of knots. Somehow, I managed to gather the ball,
which was heading towards deep square leg. I threw it flat and hard
- with pinpoint precision accuracy - to the batsman's end. It was a
direct strike, hitting the stumps from 60 yards or more! Am I
exaggerating? No!
Key was run out for a duck. We were in
total control and Southgate Adelaide were in distress at 50 for 7
off 17 overs.
Southgate finally started to show some
resilience, with their young colts Barton-Allan and Otchere scoring
25 and 17 respectively.
Umair trapped Sporting lbw for an
18-ball duck and a few overs later delivered the perfect yorker. The
ball struck the bottom of the middle stump and removed the stubborn
defence of Barton-Allan. Umair finished his devastating spell with
figures of 9-2-19-4.
Fahim Pathan wrapped things up by taking
the final wicket of Otchere and Southgate Adelaide were all out for
a Nelson!
Chasing 112 didn't prove too much of a difficulty
as Jakaria got off to decent start and was looking good with four
boundaries until he was controversially given out caught behind for
21. There was talk that the ball had clearly hit his pad, not bat!
But with no TV reviews, he had to walk.
We had a little
wobble and lost a few more early wickets, and were four down for 48
after 11 overs.
Now it was time for Umair's one-man show of
brilliance and the highlight of the day! He reached his third 50 in
his last four innings, including six fours and one six. He was well
supported at the other end by Anas Muhammad who remained unbeaten on
16. Their fifth-wicket partnership of 67 steered us to a comfortable
victory.
We had won by six wickets, erasing our six-wicket
defeat to Southgate Adelaide last season.
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