Eliteserien Match 1: Aliens vs Star
Match report – 2013
Published: 03 May 2013
Our first game of the Eliteseries 2013 was against last years runners up, Star cricket club. We met up at Stovner for a 14:00 kick off in conditions more resembling a barren wasteland than the lush green of Lords. It was cold, the type of cold that you usually associate with trips north of the artic circle. After Ryan turned up with a bag of jumpers, much money was spent and everyone seemed much happier to take the field.
Dave won the toss and elected to field, with Damon Crawford (1 for 37 off 8 overs) and one of our two debutants, Dennis Peter (2 for 53 off 8 overs) opening the bowling. Damon started off well, targeting just outside off stump like all good bowlers should. Dennis started well as well, but was unlucky to have a catch being dropped off his second ball. The opposition targeted him in his first over, with a few boundaries being hit but he bounced back superbly, tightening up his line and keeping the batsmen coming forward. Aliens first wicket belonged to Damon, where he extracted a false shot from the batsmen, scooping the ball to Pratheesh at cover. Our second wicket followed not to long after which Dennis enticing an outside edge which flew to first slip, Malcolm, who practiced his juggling skills before grasping the ball safely. Pratheesh (0 for 43 off 8) and Marcus (1 for 30 off 6) replaced the openers and bowled well together, mainly slowing down the run rate, except for a couple of expensive overs. Dave (5 overs for 36) and Mitch (5 overs for 42) were the other bowlers of the day and bowled to well set batsmen who were happy rotating the strike. Star batted well and put together a couple of good partnerships, but never really looked on top of our bowling. They put the bad balls away and were happy to take singles off the good ones. One striking difference between this eliteseries team and teams we’ve played in the past is that they don’t seem to favour cow corner as much, but seem much more comfortable playing proper cricket shots, some of which were a pleasure to watch.
All in all, the Aliens looked like a proper fielding unit, with people regularly diving to save boundaries and hurling the ball at the stumps attempting run outs. We dropped a few catches though, which probably cost us a few runs. In the end Star set us 256 to win off 40 overs.
Pratheesh (54 off 36 balls) and Will Barton (76 off 84 balls) opened the batting and got us off to a great start, with Will being happy to give Pratheesh the strike and watch the boundaries flow. The first wicket partnership was about 80 off 9 overs, exactly what we wanted at the beginning of a large chase. Pratheesh perished when he top edged a ball back to the bowler. That brought VC, Damien (36 off 39 balls) to the crease, fresh off his 150* against the Captain Scott’s XI. Will and Damien batted great together, running well, rotating the strike and putting away any bad ball bowled to them. They also shared an 80 odd run partnership, before Damien got out to an awesome c&b, after he smashed the ball back to the bowler. That brought in our second debutant, Joe Gracian Richard (12 off 9 balls), our transfer from United CC. Joe started briskly and it didn’t take him long to hit a huge 6 over mid on, something our Sri Lankan players seem pretty good at. After Joe got out, Jamie followed very shortly thereafter, misjudging a cut shot and spooning the ball to cover, to register the first duck of the season. Mitch (20 off 23 balls) was next in and looked confident after a couple of good knocks while on tour. Mitch and Will put on a few runs before Will was run out trying to rotate the strike. At that stage we needed about 60 runs off 9 overs with 5 wickets in hand, something which is neither too easy nor too difficult. Unfortunately Star bowled well and we weren’t able to put together any partnerships. The remaining wickets fell at regular intervals and our fate ended up in the hands of Marcus Lyon and Malcolm Bremner, who needed 9 off the last over to win. Marcus timed a drive to long off but was heartbreakingly caught on the edge of the boundary, giving Star their first victory of the season.
Many thanks go out to several club members, who braved the cold to come up and support the team. There were a number of spectators from other teams there as well, and I think Aliens would have earned a bit of early season respect by pushing one of the better teams to their limit.
Our next game is up at Ekeberg on Sunday at 14:00 and is against Christiania. Bring it on!
Written by J. Cameron