JC: Sharks vs Paddy Foley’s at Fuji. July 25th 2011
By Navin Jinasena
On a bright summer’s morning, ten Sharks gathered at Shinagawa Station and started their journey towards Mt. Fuji to play one of the most entertaining games of modern day world, Cricket. After reaching the city, we were taken to the Fuji 2 Cricket Field, which by now has witnessed numerous cricket blood-sheds. The Chiba Sharks team card consisted of the following players: Pat (c), Dave L (vc), Navin, Varun, Keiichi, Prashant, Anshul, Sayeed, Rasib, Koji and Nazrul.
We were hurried to the ground by Manager Dave as we were 10-minutes late at Shinagawa and some of us had to carry water to the field all the way from Shinagawa as a result. Reaching the ground right on time, at least we thought, we found nobody except a few Sri Lankan Paddys having a beer. After waiting enough time to finish a T20, Paddy Foley’s vehicle finally turned up, won the toss and choose to bat first in a 33-over contest.
Sharks in the Field
Patrick and Prashant shared the new ball and soon found life difficult as the Paddy’s openers punished anything short-and-wide, full and, at times, even the good deliveries were lofted over mid-off. The first bowling change saw Varun and Dave taking charge, but the result was pretty similar as the Sri Lankan assault continued. After racing to a quick-fire 61, Paddy’s Ace, Wijerathna, got out to a Lollback special and lost his middle. Varun, though he couldn’t hit the wooden willow sticks, managed to send the ball right through batsman’s defenses and hit Kalum, the other Paddy Opener, in the nuts, which made him walk back, stiffly and slowly, to the shelter in need of some serious treatment. With a new pair at the crease, the Sharks were confident of getting hold of the run-rate, which by now which was sky-rocking at 9 an over. No.3 batsman, Young, could not hang around for long as he was caught-dead at the crease for a plumb LBW off Prashant’s bowling for 8. New pair was John & Joshi, who kept pushing the ball towards the gaps for singles and managed to odd-boundary to keep the run-rate healthy. Meantime Navin was brought into the attack and we soon saw Joshi’s bails off by an in-swinging Yorker. After one tight over, new batsman Bakre awarded the wicket to Navin, hitting a full-toss right in to safe hands of Keiichi at Mid-on, who was more than happy to hold on to it. Next delivery saw another Paddy bite the dust, as a perfect in-swinging Yorker trapped Gunawardena right on the crease plumb for a duck. Suddenly the score went from 95-2 to 106-6, Dave was once again given the ball. He made short work of Paddy’s tail finishing it off for 124 runs with a four-for. It was an all-round effort from the Sharks in the field, with everyone contributing their best to restrict PF to 124 after the start they got off to.
Sharks at the Crease
With a petit target of 125 off 33-overs, Sharks were confident of chasing down the target and maybe earn the bonus points as well. Dave took guard for the first ball as Navin set-off to the non-strikers end. The innings got off to a watchful start, with 2 runs in the 1st over and both openers got off the mark. Off-spinner, Raghav, was given the ball from the other end and Navin comfortably dispatched the third delivery to cover bounday with a trade mark cover drive. Things started looking good for Sharks for a brief moment before 2011 Leading Sharks run-scorer, Dave L, placed a mistimed-drive into mid-on’s safe pair of hands. Before this, however, there was a slight break in play when Navin remembered that he was not wearing a box… Soon after Navin’s concentration level soon drained out as he top-edged one to point for 5. New pair, Sayeed and Anshul could not survive for long as both fell cheaply to the Paddy openers. We saw a brief recovery period once Prashant was rebuilding the innings with Pat, but once the latter got out at the score of 70 odd, everything went downhill for the Sharks. Varun managed some useful runs at the end ,but it wasn’t enough to register a Sharks victory. Sharks were all out for 106 in 26 overs, soon after Prashant reached his second consecutive half-century.
The complete Shark innings can be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9Atm7_IN3A (Thanks, Prashant!)
Nothing much to admire about Shark’s batting except the fact that everyone got some opportunity in the middle. Though the game was ours to lose and, we, in fact, did so, all the players had a good day out and Cricket emerged the victor. Well played, Paddy Foley’s!!!!!
