JCL1 Sharks vs Wyverns. 22.09.13
Sano3 – By Anton Lloyd-Williams
With a chance for either side to move into the play off positions at stake, the Wyverns and Sharks produced a thrilling encounter that was not decided until the very end of the game. It was the Wyverns though who left the pitch happier as they managed to scramble over the winning line in this low scoring tussle.
Before going into the details of the game, I offer the reader our apologies for this report being so late in the bag. Things can get a little out of hand late in the season and report writing time is at a premium so I’m required to step in here with an overview of what I can remember on that sultry morning, in a field dusted with silt from the recently flooded Tonegawa.
Sharks put out a full 12 man squad again – Prashant, Murad, Rockey, Anton, Dave L, Molloy, Adit, Sumon, StatNav, Scott, Takady and Il Capitano Sancheti. Traffic problems meant that the Starting XI was reduced to Starting VII but Dave L won the toss and chose to bat giving the stragglers time to turn up as Umpire Mee announced the start of play.
Batting – 157 all out
Murad and Dave L opened the Sharks innings and the scoreboard moved on in fits and starts as the batsmen sensibly negotiated some accurate line and length bowling from Hagihara and Nakano. Dave, dropped in the third over, was first to shake off the shackles, punching Nakano over long off for a maximum. Murad followed suit and pulled to the boundary himself. A flurry of Murad doubles and a crackerjack carpet driven 4 to the long on boundary from Lollback gave the scoreboard a healthy flush.
A change of bowlers brought a change of batsman. Ohta cleaned up Murad with a beauty which brought Prashant to the crease for the first time in a month or so. He looked a bit rusty as he reminded himself what this batting lark was all about. He got off his duck on his 19th ball faced and shared singles with the more fluid looking Lollback for a few overs. Something then clicked and back to back 6s sailed off the Kale bat into the darkest parts of the Sano flora. One ball was never found. Indeed, it was hit so hard I suspect it disintegrated in flight.
Drinks were taken at 15 overs with the score at 54 for 1; the run rate was certainly sluggish but so was the wickets taken column. Given the dampish outfield and boundaries set back, a low score was always likely so it was considered to be pretty much all square at that point.
Lollback and Kale battled on but found genuine scoring opportunites hard to come by, largely due to the quality of the bowling. Most of the bad balls were too wide to get hold of while the good ones demanded respect. Having been pinned down for a few balls, Lollback looked to work Hagihara through the off side but found the edge. Chino, behind the stumps, doesn’t drop much and Lollback had to make way for Takady in the 25th over with the score at just shy of 100.
The Japan International looked assured and aggressive from the get go, hustling singles and cracking a monster 6 back over the bowler’s head. Prashant was starting to play a lot more freely too but an expansive swing found thin air while the ball found stumps and ruined them.
Il Capitano strode out purposefully but instead of the usual fireworks we were treated to a display of singles. Looking to hit big, Sancheti got out in his favourite way; a booming drive went sailing down the ground into the palms of long on and things were looking shaky for the Sharks.
Takady kept his bat solid, straight and down and singles verily dripped from it. Molloy cashed in on the tiring field too and a run a ball kept the scoreboard ticking over nicely. What it needed though was a beefy boost from some boundaries but these proved elusive and Takady, Molloy and Sumon fell in quick succession in the hunt for the quadruple quarry.
The tail was now exposed, but not for long. The last 4 wickets were on special offer and went for just 10 (including extras). Sharks all out then, in the middle of the 40th over for 157. The top order had given a good account of themselves, the tail had barely flinched but the Wyverns had been unusually generous in shipping 32 extras.
| B | 4 | 6 | R | ||||
| K. Murad | b. Ohta | 43 | 2 | 0 | 18 | ||
| D. Lollback | c. Chino | b. Hagihara | 53 | 3 | 1 | 34 | |
| P. Kale | b. Nakano | 32 | 1 | 2 | 27 | ||
| T. Takada | c. Fielder | b. Nakano | 29 | 0 | 1 | 21 | |
| V. Sancheti | c. Fielder | b. Kubota | 8 | 0 | 0 | 6 | |
| C. Molloy | c. Mamenari | b. Masubuchi | 14 | 0 | 0 | 9 | |
| M. Haque | c. Fielder | b. Ohta | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | |
| A. Lloyd-Williams | c. Ohta | b. Hagihara | 9 | 0 | 0 | 3 | |
| S. Mehmood | c. Chino | b. Masubuchi | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| S. Musgrave | b. Masubuchi | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| A. Tallepragada | Not out | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||
| Extras | W28 N2 B1 L1 | 32 | |||||
| Total | 157 | For 10 wkts | 40 0vers | ||||
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Bowling – Wyverns 158 for 6
That was not a total to defend. Attack would be the order of the day as the Wyverns would no doubt have enough in the locker to deal with a required run rate of 4 an over. They sent out Hanada and Ogawa, the latter of who could knock those runs off before drinks if he got in. He didn’t though as Takada tormented the edge of his bat with some very pacy bowling. Ogawa took a frustrated swing at one drifting in to him and shot the ball high out over square leg. Rockey was motionless under it. It seemed to take an age to come down. His hands went up. The ball went in. And stuck. The silence detonated into shouts of genuine joy and relief that the Wyverns danger man had perished cheaply.
Such moments ought to be cherished as they are few and far between. Such was the case for the next hour or so as Hanada and Chino knuckled down to the job of steadily chipping away at the total. There were very few flamboyant shots but almost no silly ones. Try as they might the bowlers could find no way through the solid defence set up to defend the woodwork. Even Adit, who has enough craft and guile to bowl a snail out of its shell, was snubbed by the gritty Wyverns stumper and his younger compadre.
Dave L bowled with his usual deft miserliness and the scoreboard required only intermittent attention. At drinks the Wyverns were at 51 for 1, 3 worse off than the Sharks had been. So honours even in round 1. How long could the Sharks keep their line and length? Could they squeeze the batsmen out or leave them stranded where they were? Would the Wyverns patience last or would they hit out and get out?
With the match nicely poised, Il Capitano Sancheti brought himself into the attack. He exchanged his normal laser guided missles for some nippy looking tweakers that bemused rather than threatened. And so it continued. The bowlers probed, the batsmen pinched and the fielders pounced on anything that came near. The 25th over came and went quietly with the Wyverns on 95, still 3 short of where the Sharks had been. It was almost like 2 boxers jabbing politely at each other, staying out of trouble, waiting for the last round when the fists would really start flying.
The deadlock was broken by Molloy in the 28th. A seemingly innocuous looking ball caught Hanada still enjoying his 2 the ball before, and he mistimed a lofted drive out to a pair of trusty Lollback hands at mid off.
This got Sancheti’s dander up and he switched back to pace mode, sending down successive maidens that were difficult to see, let alone play. Musgrave and Kale came into the attack, providing a bit of pace and bounce to upset the batsmen. Kale beat Mamenari, uprooting the stumps and all of a sudden the advantage looked to back with the Sharks. With aggression and focus they could have and perhaps should have turned this into a winning position, particularly after Lollback got his just rewards and sent Chino back to the shed, courtesy of a good catch by Sancheti.
Shortly afterwards Sancheti destroyed Uehara’s timbers with a jaffer and Hagihara got himself run out (via Sumon) as Wyverns threatened to panic in their desperate search for the last handful of runs. Five overs to go and 17 runs to get – easily doable, but such vocabulary does not exist in the lexicon of the tail. The tension was palpable as Adit looked to snag the wickets of the anxiously prodding batsmen.
Crucially for the Wyverns, Ohta had managed to survive this far to guide the tail through the maelstrom that came down at them. Adit’s trickery, Lollback’s power and Sancheti’s pace were safely negotiated with a dead bat at one end and a devious one at the other. A couple of well placed flicks and an outrageous 6 from Ohta brought the Wyverns to the brink in the 38th. The winning runs came from Ohta’s bat on the last ball of the 39th.
| O | M | W/N | W | R | |
| T. Takada | 6 | 0 | 8/1 | 1 | 31 |
| C. Molloy | 8 | 0 | 4/0 | 1 | 38 |
| A. Tallapragada | 6 | 0 | 3/0 | 0 | 22 |
| D. Lollback | 7 | 0 | 0/0 | 1 | 21 |
| V. Sancheti | 8 | 2 | 6/1 | 1 | 27 |
| S. Musgrave | 2 | 0 | 0/0 | 0 | 9 |
| P. Kale | 2 | 0 | 3/0 | 1 | 6 |
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It was frustrating to say the least. However, it’s a bit too simplistic to say that the Sharks should have won the game. It would be unfair to the grit shown by the Wyverns. It would also be short sighted to ignore the lack of a middle order that has plagued the Sharks this season. The number of wides thrown up was again unacceptable for team that “should” win matches.
Regardless of these concerns, it was a tense, exciting and intriguing match to play in and watch. Both sides fought true and hard until the end. The Sharks can be thankful that if they cannot win matches like these then at least they can regularly create, enjoy and genuinely compete in them.
Many thanks to the Wyverns for a great game, to umpire Mee who was as fair and clear as usual, and to StatNav for turning out as 12th man.
