May, 2011 – Not Much to Admire About Loss to Adore

Chiba Sharks vs Adore, May 14, 2011
By Kris Bayne

The Sharks less-than-impressive start to the season continued today, going down to plucky Adore at Fuji 2. This was not the start to our title defence we wanted or expected. With us as reigning JCL Champions and Adore coming up from Division Two, we expected to overpower them. We might have been a bit too confident…

That the game was played at all was the first surprise of the day with Japan having experienced a very early seasonal typhoon during the week. But play we did and we arrived at the ground to have a still snow-capped Fuji in sight all day and Fuji 1 well-carpeted in mauve. The scene was so fetching that parts of the typhoon decided to stick around and we had to deal with very strong winds for most of the game (Adore lost their tent early on and ours was reduced to industrial art eventually.) We were down to 9.5 players after Nav’s late withdrawal, but we welcomed back Sayeed for his first game in a number of years and VERY new boy, Mineyuki ‘Tommy’ Tomiyama found himself in a starting XI faster that he would have expected. Kris made up the 0.5 with a dicky knee. The full squad was:

Pat (c), Chris (vc), Dave L, Vicky, Anton, Anshul, Keiichi, Sayeed, Kris, ‘Tommy’ Tomiyama

With new captain, Pat, delayed in traffic vice captain Chris continued his inglorious run of luck by losing the toss and we were put into bat in very warm, strong blustery conditions. (How strong was the wind?: the flipped coin went straight up and straight down – no rotations – and five metres sideways. We believe this accounted for an unusual number of UFO sightings around Mt. Fuji on that day.)

Batting

The innings opened with Chris and Kris, Adore quick Hagiwara bowling seam up just short of a length with a stiff gale behind him, blowing across his right shoulder and away from the right-hander.

It went pear-shaped pretty quick.

After a couple of authoritative defensive strokes to balls seaming away, Chris picked the wrong ball to leave. It seemed to be following the path of it’s mates towards slips but seamed back in alarmingly and took the top of off. Distance back to our tent 6,523 kilometres. At least Adore and, rather unseemingly, the umpires enjoyed it. New bat Dave L and Kris knuckled down. With Hagiwara bowling a good line and Shimada tossing loopy, unpredictable thingys into the swirling wind, runs and timing were hard to come by. Kris was eventually castled by another Hagiwara jagger which brought former Pred Keiichi “Itchy ‘Roo” Warabi to the crease.

The ensuing bowling change did not produce a flow of runs as hoped. As Pat had warned, the Adore boys may not boast individual stars but they are solidly skilled and drilled. The windy conditions probably favoured the type of bowling served up – just of a speed that would make a batsman’s eye light up but that the wind would also have a have a say in, and of a consistency that would keep the batsman wondering what was next.

Wickets fell at regular intervals and we had to scratch around for ones and twos. The lush coverage not was helping any well-struck shots and the Adore team were fleet of foot and strong of arm. If keenness were bottle-able, these blokes would have ‘Kirin’ stamped on their arses.

Dave holed out rather meekly to cover, and even Pat, returned from national duty, struggled for rhythm and runs. At the fall of his wicket we were 4 for 39.  Next in, Varun had to control his fiery aggression and did so for longer than normal. He clobbered a lovely four but soon departed, unfulfilled, caught superbly down low at shortish mid off.

Anton started his innings of resurrection with two magnificent forward defensive strokes right out of the ‘sweet spot’ that brought grunts and nods of approval from the scorers. The ensuing ‘agricultural’ mow (actually more ‘hunter and gatherer’) took a bottom edge onto the stumps. There was much sucking of teeth.

Itchy’Roo Warabi kept at it and when joined by our ‘dentist who came in from the cold’, Sayeed, we at least saw some boundary action. Sayeed casually launched a driven 6 into the storeroom corner and this also inspired ‘Roo to jump into some shots. If these two could get a hold of the attack we might be able to put up a defendable score. Both fell in quick succession, however, in try to push the score. Anshul, prowling the nets and boundary, marched off to hopefully salvage some Sharks pride but had to cool his heels at the non-striker’s end (sadly his booming square cut will have to wait until another day). This was becoming VERY embarrassing.

On paper we had a solid batting line up but today was not a day for paper… Our final batsman was Tomiyama-san, padded, helmeted, insured and photographed, bravely going in for his first EVER cricket innings, having only picked up a cricket bat all of two months ago. Tommy milked the first delivery to draw a no-ball and the removal of the bowler, Tsuchiya. 1-0 to Tommy. The fourth ball from the sub-bowler ended his short but memorable innings, and a horrid one for the Chiba Sharks.

It was ragged. The whole innings twisted and flapped like the washing on a clothesline. Chiba Sharks all out 9-85.

Bowling

We had about 15 minutes before the scheduled lunch break to make inroads into Adore. There was a feeling that if we could break through early with a couple of wickets we could apply some real pressure to the lower order.

Pat opened with an aggressive field and is often the case, the ball whistled, sang, and tra-la-la-ed its way past the probing edge and into the ‘keepers gloves. An insect, turning the final page of this life into the side of Kris’ helmet at short leg, set off a glorious appeal of one. The close calls were annoying, but as this was cricket not baseball the batsmen lived to play and miss again – lots. A thickish edge here and speculative cross-bat slog there and the runs squeaked along. The ball popped up close in gaps. All very depressing – and the wind howled.

Our one joy for the day came when Pat moved Vicky into gully just before the break. Yamanouchi finally made some contact of the correct amount. The ball flew in a sidewinder missile fashion low and fast to Vicky’s right. Boxer reflexes kicked in. A blinding take with very little daylight between hand and grass. Ne’er had such a catch been taken by a Shark since the day ‘Air’ Creece soared and did two passes ’round the ramparts Fuji. We finally got a break! We hoped this would be the crack to prise open Adore. Wasn’t. Anshul was brought on and if he hit his line it might have given something for Adore to think about, but the wind played havoc with anything tossed up. Vicky hit the pads with his first three deliveries for no luck and that about summed up his overs. After the new batsman fumbled around a bit but survived we went to lunch with only 60-odd up our sleeve and nine Adores to get.

Soon after resumption the main thorn in our side, JCL Committee member Shun, departed bowled by Itchy’Roo, who was backing up his solid batting with some good line and length bowling. We had been warned that Adore had no ‘tail’, which suggests ‘earthworm’, but this one certainly had turned. The good balls were usually too good, but the bad balls had something done to them, usually resulting in runs. With growing confidence the Adores started to open their shoulders and find the rope. The score crept along. Inexplicably, the wind disappeared. Just like that. Dave bowled with pace at times but could not get his lethal slower ball in the right spots. Pat bowled without luck and if balls that flirted with the edge were beers, he wouldn’t have been able to find square leg. Keiichi was always threatening but slowly the game slipped away. To add insult to injured pride the final two runs were achieved, on Chris’ urging, with insurance as the batsman deposited the ball over the square leg boundary. Adore 2-89.

So far we are 0-3 in games played over two weekends. Let’s hope today was our horrible performance for the year. We should not have had as much trouble scoring. Without making excuses it was not easy to bat in the wind, but the Adore bowlers stuck to their task and removed a good core of experienced batsmen. We were a bit timid in our approach when perhaps we should have thrown caution to the wind. In the field our bowling was good but Adore rode their luck and did not dwell on any misses or scrapping runs.

As the start of our defence of the JCL crown, this was more tiara. From a team point of view the only positive I could see was that we get to play these guys again. Adore were buoyant, they were fresh, they were not fazed, they will keep…продвижение сайтапродвижениераскруткавзломать страницу вконтакте бесплатноbelkin чехолкредитная карта приватбанка в украинеgiocare gratis al bingodubai exclusive escortmerit otel casinobeste-onlinecasinos.comтур май турцияфитнес для девушек люблино