One Day Competition - President Cardinals vs Merivale Papanui, Bishopdale Park #1, Presidents, 13th December 2014
We knew we were in trouble, a dampish but underlying hard wicket at Bishopdale Park, a key toss to win and then bowl, but with two minutes to go and our ultra reliable coin tossing captain nowhere to be seen. Laughts substitutes, thus putting the odds back to 50/50, loses, game lost - well maybe not as clear cut as that but the fault is clear. Almost as soon as Ralphy had made it back to join us from the wrong ground at Sydenham Park, we were in trouble.
Batting first, opening batsman Laughton, fresh from nearly 301 runs for once out in the past three games, was out first ball of the match - worse, from a ball that reportedly pitched such that if it hadn't cut back to take the top of the off stump, would have probably been called a wide. But his reliable partner Wildy was still there with Kev in recovering the situation with a partnership of 19 that regrettable turned out to be the highest of the innings. Kev was then bowled for 7, Wildy likewise for 11, and when Matty, struggling with a back injury, and newcomer Matt Bradley also fell, we were 20/5 having lost 4 wickets for 1 run.
About this time Phil Barclay arrived from Sydenham Park, equally misled by Ralphy, to watch the final rights.
The skipper tried to make good with his middle order 28 providing some small hope that a 120 type target might be possible, but he struggled for support. With three fill-in players having their first games, in some cases for many years, no one was able to survive on that wicket let along get to double figures, and when Ralphy finally fell we were out for a dismal 65. Yes the conditions weren't great, and Merivale did bowl well, but it certainly wasn't 65 bad.
The Merivale innings in reply was reasonably trouble free. The demons in the wicket had slowly been exorcised over the short period of our innings, and although losing a couple of wickets on the way, they had our total inside 18 overs. The only beneficiary of that was Jules who took 2/15 from his six overs, but in general it was hard to find anyone taking a positive out of this match.
Man of the Match: Not Named
Check out the scorecard from the game.