By Nick Creece
On the way to the ground the cloud over Togane continued to get darker and darker. The rain that Taka and Chris assured me was not in Togane, was following me from Yotsukaidou. When I arrived at the ground and the rain was falling I did not think we would get any play in at all, but play we did. With the blessing of the ground staff both sides decided to give it a go. The lines were marked, the pitch was rolled out and under dark skies and constant drizzle we got underway.
The sharks lost the toss and were asked to have a bowl by the Universities team. We were ready to go, but seemed to be a couple short. Then we realized that Chris and Taka were in the middle of an interview at mid off. I told Navin and Dave to open up, but we still couldn’t coz of a wicketkeeper shortage. We eventually prized Chris away from his interview and sent Taka and the reporter to third man and we were away.
Both openers hit the spot and Navin had a couple of early wickets, eventually finishing with 3. Dave couldn’t get a wicket but bowled well just the same. The slippery pill was then thrown to the organizer and he did not let his team down. A fine spell of four overs netted 2 wickets and a great run out. Nikhil got 2 for 2 off 2 overs and was taken off for fear he would clean up the team if he was allowed to bowl any more. The universities team was in big strife at about 5 for 30.
Ohta strode to the wicket and was ably supported by the tail. He hit some exquisite boundaries and the shot of the day (closely followed by Vicky’s straight driven six) was his wallop over midwicket into the carpark. Special thanks to the bloke who threw the ball back to us. He made a fine 31 and gave the Universities team a score of 119 to defend.
Anton, Ankit, Richard and Vicky all sent down some good overs, but the wetness of the ball made it harder to hold onto than a pee after a few beers on the way home from Sano in Chris’s car. It was a fine performance in the field by the sharks, especially Chris’s slide almost to the boundary after his catch.
After a two and a half minute break Chris and Nikhil headed out to chase the total. After three minutes Chris was back. Vicky climbed out of his wheelchair to bat at three and him and Nikhil both played well until with the score on 51 both of them were gone. Vicky got 26 and Nikhil 9. We were ahead of the run rate, but when Ankit trudged back we were suddenly in a bit of strife. Shark fins were frantically slapping in the rising water to find gear.
Navin looked solid for his 11, but couldn’t stick around. Anton and Taka both played some fine shots in their brief stays for 5 and 7 respectively. When I joined Dave we were 7 down with 24 to get off 5 overs. Then the rain that had been raining all day and that we had done well to ignore really started bucketing down!! Sharks swam for cover and frozen University students were left in our wake. Onosaka and Akimoto both got 2 wickets for the Universities team. All of their bowlers did well considering the wet conditions.
The ground got soaked in the 20 minutes of torrential rain that followed and to the delight of the umpires, one of whom was padded up and the other who needed padding on his stiff parts, the game was called an honorable draw. After a fair amount of sharking around we headed to the warm showers, well at least those of us who brought towels did!
After that we went back to Chris’s for late lunch and a few beers and some test match action from India. I finally made it back after dropping off Navin and our newest shark Richard Dixon (Welcome to the Sharks) at Oami station and getting supplies. The bus came at around 5 to Thurgate mansion and that was the end of the Chiba Cup.
Many thanks to the umpires on the day, Mr. Lambert and Mr. Bayne. Thanks also to the ground staff at Togane arena for accommodating us and enabling us to play a game of cricket in Chiba.
Well done to all Sharks, especially Taka and Chris, for making the day a success, and well done to the universities team for giving us a good game of cricket in trying conditions.
