Eliteserien Match 2: Aliens vs Christiania
When: 7 May
Where: Ekeberg 1
Christiania - 239/9 off 40 ov.
Aiens - 240/2 off 33.?
Aliens won by 8 wickets
The second game of season will go down in the history books as Aliens first ever win in Norway’s highest division and be remembered for an unbelieveable Chris Gayle-esque innings from Pratheesh. We were up against the newly renamed Christiania CC (formally Jinnah). The teams were met by brilliant sunshine and a chilly wind. Captain Dave won the toss again and elected to Field.
Damon Crawford (8 overs, 3 for 38) opened the bowling along with Dennis Peter (5 overs, 0 for 25) and got us off to a great start. Damon showed some real venom, taking the first 2 wickets with whooping inswinging yorkers. Christiania recovered somewhat and put together about a 50 run 3rd wicket partnership before Marcus (5 overs, 1 for 33) induced a thin edge, which was sharply taken by Fat Kat Cameron, standing up the stumps. That wicket fell on the last delivery of the over and Aliens only had to wait until the next ball before celebrating again, when Mitch (8 overs, 2 for 43) lured their opener into skying the ball to mid on, where Barts took a great catch over his right shoulder. Mitch completed a team hattrick when the batsmen tried to smash his first ball over cover, only to find Damien Devlin prowling there. The Aliens were ecstatic and well on top of the game, having Christiania at about 70 for 5. Unfortuanly we lacked our killer instinct and let another partnership develop aided by a number of dropped catches and a great many wides. Aliens finally broke the partnership when Pratheesh (6 overs, 2 for 47) targeted middle stump with a quick yorker. Captain Dave (8 overs, 1 for 49) was the final bowler for Aliens, bowling an off stump line, to try and counteract the Christiania batsmen hitting 98% of their shots to leg. Wickets fell at regularish intervals but Christiania managed to get to a competitive 239 for 9 off their alloted 40 overs.
Enter Pratheesh Thangavadivel Kumar (158* off 79 balls, 19x4 and 4x6) who batted brilliantly from his very first ball, where he casually thumped the first ball of the innings over point for 4. Pratheesh played the type of innings many of us dream about, blocking out the good balls but making sure that every bad ball bowled to him was sent flying. He pounced on anything short, cutting and pulling with severity. He latched onto anything full, sending the ball towering back over the bowlers head or sailing over cover. I can quite happily say that every bowler in our team should be thanking the heavens that we don’t have to bowl to him. Without checking the stats, I’m pretty sure that 158 off 79 balls is the best innings the eliteseries has ever seen and it should send some serious shivers down the rest of the leagues bowler’s backs. The shot of the day, in my opinion, must be his back foot lofted cover drive off their spinner which bounced inches inside the rope. Being able to hit the ball that hard from that position is enough to scare me off ever trying to arm wrestle him. The scorecard may suggest a 1 man show, but Pratheesh was very well supported by Barts (32 off 46 balls), who seemed quite happy to keep out the good bowling and rotate the strike. When Barts fell, Damien (16 off 21) looked in good touch and carried on where Will left off, happily rotating the stike and punishing the bad balls. With the Aliens needing about 60 runs off the last 12 overs, Damien fell to one that kept low and was replaced by Dennis (7 off 11 balls). Given our collapse from the week before, these were nervous times, but Dennis played very well and a tiring Pratheesh decided to finish things off, but hitting almost 60 runs of the next 4 overs, finishing the game with characteristic cut through point. Well played man!
In the end it was an 8 wicket victory with about 6 overs to spare, a thumping really. But we’ve got plenty of room for improvment. If we can cut out the wides and hold our catches, we’ll be chasing 150 each week instead of 240. Let start on Wednesday, against the team we love to beat, Bærum.
Written by Jamie Cameron