One Day Competition - President Cardinals vs Hospital, Sydenham Park #3, Presidents, 5th December 2015
The idea against Hospital was to bat first, get a crap-tonne of easy runs, knock them over, and early beers. The inevitable flaw in that plan was that Ralphie lost the toss and they chose to bat.
From there, it was pretty boring stuff. Nothing really got beyond first gear – and if the motor did start, for most of the first innings the clutch was in and the foot well off the gas.
Hospital batted the full 40 to finish 88/6, and frankly, it was pretty tired. Wickets fell at 18, 22, 46, 47, 65 and 81, with only three of the eight batsmen making double figures. Phil Walker took a great slip catch first up, leaving Flem wondering why he couldn’t take outfield catches, Baryshnikov-coski took good running catch off Waza, Wildy took one off Ski, and Laughts caught top scorer Crawford (25) off Phil Walker. Congo and Ralphie chipped in too, each knocking some poles over. For much of the first 20 the run-rate struggled to get to 1.5 an over, and somehow struggled over two, thanks to some byes late in the piece.
On a day where bad balls seemed to earn a lot of wickets, Waza finished 2-13 off eight with three maidens, Ski 1-6 off five with three maidens, Ralphie 1-19 off seven with three maidens, Congo 1-16 off seven with three maidens, Phil Walker 1-4 off four with three maidens, Flem 0-11 off four with two maidens and Wildy 0-1 off one. Jules made a welcome return to the bowling crease, finishing 0-3 off four with three maidens.
Enter Laughts and Wildy, and somewhere, ominous music was playing. Only Laughts went for seven in the second over, and Phil B got promoted to three. After a positive start, threatening to get more than Laughts, Phil’s defence again proved to be about as questionable as a Malaysian defence envoy caught on a random doorstep with his pants down, and he departed for six – his top score so far this season.
It was left to Ski and Wildy to get the job done, and Wildy was doing it in a fashion that if Hospital had scored more, Wildy would have scored millions. He finished 57 not out with 16 scoring shots, with just the five singles, seven fours and four sixes – and less than half a dozen dot balls. Ski finished 22 not out.
Man of the Match: Anthony Wild
Check out the scorecard from the game.