League Match # 2 vs MASK

See the scorecard at CricClubs

In the second league game of the season, the Aliens won the toss and elected to bat. What followed was a rather lacklustre and below par performance with the bat, not aided by Ekeberg 3’s sluggish outfield, which doesn’t complement Aliens’ more traditional along the ground stroke play approach to cricket. When only three players manage to reach double figures (Dave.K 24, Mitch 14 and Marcus 10), 3 run outs, no one striking above a hundred and extras as the second highest scorer, I think everyone would admit it was a bad day at the office.

But cricket is a funny game and by no means over until it’s over and the 97 that the aliens amassed, despite being fairly short of par, was by no means indefensible.

With a fair bit of pent up frustration from the first innings, the Aliens took to the field ready to play hard, aggressive and competitive cricket. What followed was proper competitive cricket, played with good intensity and with both teams going at it.

The game was turned on its head when Damon picked up two wickets in the first over and the game was fully on when he picked up another in the third. Mask then stabilised but never really got on top. With the game in the balance, the intensity only increased, with good chat (finally a game with some verbals) adding to the atmosphere. One especially feisty period came when young Saif Ul-Islam in the middle of a particularly chatty spell, boldly guaranteed that he would score 54 and would owe 10 kr for every run he fell short. This really set the aliens going and what followed was a fiery spell of quintessential fast bowling from Crawford, with balls whizzing past the young batsman’s head and wrapping him repeatedly on the gloves. Aliens continued to fight for every inch and took wickets at regular intervals, with skipper Dave.K, Dave.M and Benan picking up one a piece, along with a run out courtesy of Hinchy. In the end Aliens were probably 10-20 runs short and Mask stumbled across the line, winning the game by 3 wickets, with 7 balls to go.

Despite the narrow loss, and obvious work to be done with bat, including how to approach a T20 innings, many positives can be taken from the second innings. The intensity and aggression with which Aliens played resulted in exceptional bowling and a top draw fielding performance where everyone gave there all and put their bodies on the line. These are the standards that we should strive for in every game, no matter the game situation or intensity levels from the opposition.

This was cricket played at its best (the second innings at least), finally a game with some bite.