vs Minhaj A, T20 (Div 4) Match 3
The scorebook said Aliens 122 for 2, Minhaj 121 all out. Which is a neat way of recording events, but not necessarily an accurate one. Cricket is rarely so simple.
Aliens began as though they had been handed the wrong script. Simon, playing his first match of a seasons, scratched his way to five from fourteen balls before Shinwari removed him with the score on 11. The required urgency was absent, perhaps misplaced in somebody's kit bag next to the bails! Avra and Pratik then settled into a partnership built on patience, caution, and the shared understanding that panic is often overrated.
Avra compiled 30 from 37 deliveries, a score with all the glamour of accountancy but considerable value. At the other end, Pratik slowly went through the gears. There were only six boundaries in his innings, five of them clearing the rope, but despite lacking his usually fluency he didn’t panic and throw it away. By the time Avra departed with the score on 88 in the sixteenth over, Pratik had established himself as the man the score was built around.
Dennis joined in the innings late on but talked bigger than he managed to hit after giving the spectators a chat about going from ball one, he finished unbeaten on 9 off 13.
In some ways that was a bit the story of the innings, solid, mostly untroubled but just lacking that little extra to take the score up to an above average one. The innings closed on a fractionally under par 122.
However, like many modest targets, it grew in stature the closer anybody got to it.
The chase began chaotically. Minhaj lost two wickets inside two overs and three within four, with Dennis getting two and Sudesh grabbing one in two overs that can only be described as action packed. 33-3 after 4. After this frantic start Minaj settled down a bit, with former Alien Tariq rebuilder in chief.
Benan, then the three-pronged off spin attach of David, Rahul and Lendle rattled through the next 9 overs for just 38 runs, a spell of cricket that resembled somebody quietly stealing bricks from a building while nobody was paying attention. Two more wickets fell in this spell, the first a sharp catch ground the corner form Lendle and the second a brilliant diving catch form Arva to snaffle the ball inches from the turf that probably deserves its own report.
At 71 for 6 after thirteen overs, the chase looked to be all but finished on paper. But anyone involved in aliens or Norwegian cricket knows that cricket here rarely works that way, there is nearly always a sting in the tail
In this case, His name was Abdul Baker.
Baker began cautiously enough. After five balls he had two runs. After ten balls he had nine. Then Matt's over arrived and briefly resembled a charitable donation.
A no-ball six. A four. Another four. Another no-ball. After the second no ball Matt was removed from the attack (he didn’t look too disappointed) and Sudesh was given the task of starting with a free hit and a batsman who’s suddenly found form.
Baker hit Sudesh’s first ball straight down Pratik’s throat at long on, and Sudesh’s celebration suggested he had forgotten it was a free hit, much giggling in the field ensured!
He got through the rest of the over unscathed, however 19 runs coming from the over was enough to swing the momentum in a low scoring match and the required rate had collapsed to 5.2.
By the end of the 17th over Minhaj were 107 for 6, needing only 16 from 18 deliveries and with Baker flying. It felt very much like a film we’d seen before.
The 18th over brought eight runs more. Baker slapped a short ball for 4 through square leg and then threaded lovely back cut behind square for a couple. The target shrank to eight from thirteen balls.
Then came the first twist.
On the final ball of Lendle’s over, Baker went hard again, trying to launch a length ball over midwicket, this time he didn’t quite get all of it and Rahul took an excellent catch on the rope to end his cameo. He walked off for 39 from 30 balls, having transformed the chase and then left it unfinished.
Minhaj were 115 for 7.
Still favourites.
Almost certainly favourites.
Dennis took the nineteenth over himself (captaining as Pratik was off the field)
Tariq on strike
Dot ball.
Two runs.
Dot.
Dot.
Dot.
A single pushed back past the bowler
Three runs from the over.
Five required from the final six deliveries.
Defeat still seemed likely, with just one swiped boundary probably all that was needed.
Benan was given responsibility, with his tail up after an excellent spell the week before.
First ball: Tariq drove the ball firmly to Dennis at mid off, who half stopped it, the batsman came through, and then Tariq, keen to get back on strike, called for a second that went against everything your taught as a kid about running on misfields, and Babar was run out by half a pitches length.
Second ball: dot.
The field crept closer. Conversations shortened. The noise around the ground changed.
Third ball: Tariq punched the ball over mid off, and it seemed it would run away for a boundary to tie up the scores. However this is Norway, a land where they rarely cut the outfield and when they do they leave the gangs set to 2cm! The ball stopped up a few meters short of the boundary, and the batsmen were only able to scamper two.
Two required from three deliveries.
One clean boundary would still end it.
Or, more likely one thick edge. Or misfield.
Instead came another dot ball.
Two needed from two.
Tariq had now spent 39 balls compiling 19 runs, an innings of endurance rather than adventure. The sort of knock that survives by avoiding mistakes. Unfortunately for him, one arrived at just the wrong time.
Fifth ball. Benan coming around the wicket, looking to cramp the batsmen for room. Tariq had given himself some room looking to poke a single on the offside, however the ball sneaked past his prod and rattled into off stump, ending his vigilant innings.
One run still required.
One ball remaining.
A new batter, Shinwari, walked in. There is no lonelier journey in cricket than the one from boundary rope to crease when a match depends on your first ball, was he imagining a match winning 6 or a despairing swipe and miss.
One run needed.
One ball left
Last man on strike
Chaos likely, fielders telling each other to stay calm in the least calm manner possible
Benan ran in. Cleaned bowled in a copy of the previous ball. Game over.
Minhaj all out for 121.
Aliens had defended 122 by a solitary run
The scoreboard records that Benan with figures of 3-0-12-2 and that the final over yielded only three runs while claiming three wickets, including a run-out. Those numbers are accurate, but incomplete. They don’t capture the sensation of watching hopes of victory fade, pause, reverse, and then reappear. Nor do they explain why we keep coming back.
Perhaps because every so often the game produces a finish like this, where 39.5 overs are merely a preamble to the last one.
And because somewhere, years from now, we’ll remember only two things: we won by one run, and the Manchester Super Elefants promo video!
