Friendly Match 31/08: Aliens vs Fjord
The game started in typical Aliens fashion with a fair number of players stuck in traffic. That wasn’t much of a problem though as the other team could only field 9 players. Aliens batted first and Milton and Sudesh combined brilliantly together to create a strong opening partnership that had to be retired after Milton reached 55 of 35 just after drinks. The Aliens were tracking strongly, having only lost one wicket before the 19th over, when Tim was run out, Ryan bowled and then Rasel bowled off consecutive deliveries. The innings ended on 160/4.
James Farrer (on debut) took the new ball and picked up a wicket in his second over to get the aliens off to a bright start. It should also be mentioned that Arif, who also took the new ball, had two catches dropped off his bowling in two balls. The bowling started off fairly tight, however the batters for Fjord upped the scoring rate in the middle overs, and needed only 11 runs off the last two overs. Eric bowled brilliantly in the second last over to restrict the scoring, and in addition picked up a handy wicket.
Then it was Rasel’s responsibility to close the game out. With five needed off the last over it was a pretty hard task. Benan brought the field in and with the pressure building Dave (with the gloves on) ran out the in batsman by throwing down the stumps at the opposite end. Rasel bowled beautifully and created a catch and multiple runout opportunities, the last one off the last ball of the innings ensuring the tie. Pretty exciting finish.
Extra note to thank Sudesh for the bag of chocolates of which Erik ate 80%