HALVERSTOWN 179-9 (40 overs)
Paolo Rosa 51* Tojo Thomas 27 Kevin Threadgold 21
Karan 3/33
TYRRELSTOWN 180-8 (35 overs)
Rajesh 55
Lijo Joseph 4/29 Neville Case 2/22
This was a very good game of cricket but another one we were disappointed to lose, having twice recovered strongly from difficult positions. The game swung steadily but decisively to and fro.
We won the toss and batted. As befits the leaders of the division, their bowling was tight all the way through. The weather was good but the outfield was slow and runs very hard to come by at first. After an extraordinary first over which saw 8 runs (none from the bat), it took us 7 more overs to score another 8! We finally started to move things on, but wickets also started falling. We went from a slow but steady 39-1 to only 65-5 after 23 overs and they were well on top. Not first time this year however, we rallied really well and from that point on we scored at nearly 7 per over against the top team. An excellent partnership between Paolo and Kevin doubled the score to 130-5 and we had a platform for some fireworks in the last few overs. Paolo and Tojo provided them, with Tojo hitting three 6s in his 27 including a beauty flicked off his legs into the middle of the sheep next door. If Paolo is learning to pace his batting as he did in this game then the future is even brighter - his was an excellent innings. While 180 was not a huge target, the outfield was slow and we were well satisfied considering the difficult start we had.
Neville and Vishnu gave them absolutely nothing at the beginning of their innings, they were only 2-1 off 6 overs and we were dominant. From then on however, they started to take over and accelerated the scoring to more than 6 per over, moving to 82-1 off 20 overs and they were in full flow. Enter Lijo! He swung the game back in our favour with an aggressive spell of bowling, taking 4 for 29 in his 5 overs. At 149-6 off 30 overs, Lijo had almost single-handedly dragged us back into the game and we felt we were in with a chance of victory. On reflection however, they needed 31 from 10 overs and these teams bat the whole way down. But because we had fought back and had the momentum, we were disappointed that we couldn't finish the game off. We also had 4 or 5 chances in the field, some were difficult, but on another day we would have hoped to have taken at least a couple of them. Such is cricket. They finally moved steadily to victory with 5 overs but only 2 wickets to spare to conclude a very well-contested match. Their somewhat raucous cheering at the end told us how pleased (and relieved) they were to win.
We are going head-to-head with the best teams in the division, competing really well but unfortunately just coming out the wrong side in the key contests. We are however a very decent outfit indeed - lots of players contributing to both batting and bowling and we are able to turn games around when the tide is flowing against us. I want to thank the players for their excellent efforts so far this season and I'm lucky and proud to be captain of such a fine bunch of cricketers.
Next up for H1 is a T20 game on Saturday.
John Threadgold 17/7/24