Extra extra! Read all about it (our league game vs Catalunya Jaguars)

Scorecard

Our fifth league game of the season came on a relatively cool August Monday evening, with a pleasant breeze blowing across the ground. We were playing against one of the strongest teams in Catalonia, albeit one missing a couple of players on international duty. They won the toss and unsurprisingly chose to bat first. 

Maxi Hoeck opened the bowling, started with a wide but quickly made up for it with the first wicket. James Bentley opened at the other end with him but it was his German opening partner claiming all the glory, as he picked up another two wickets in his second over and a fourth with the last ball of his third over. Jaguars finished the powerplay on 49/4, helped greatly by a few wayward balls causing the umpire to stretch his arms out and keeper Ash Reynolds to get acclimatised to rolling around on the plastic grass. Captain Shriram Bhosale bowled the second of his overs showing the openers how to keep it tidy but decided against using himself again. The pace came off in the middle overs, with Vishesh Gajjar and Jon Wong bowling in tandem either side of the early drinks break, with Jon finally breaking the partnership. Ujjwal Anand and Wills Camfield came on for a bowl too, with tidy first overs from both before Wills’ second over was good enough to see him not only taken out of the attack, but substituted off the field. Maxi (4/35) was brought back for his final over in the hope of removing the dangerous Haider but to no avail. There was a wicket in the next over for Sam Phillipps, although perhaps not the one we wanted. Thankfully, Vishesh got him in the next over before putting himself on a hattrick with the last ball of the over. The last two wickets could only put on six runs between them (and four of those were gifted by us!) with a wicket apiece for James and Sam (2/17), meaning Vishesh (2/29)  will have to wait for his hattrick ball. Jaguars finished on 176, finishing their innings 10 balls early. We walked off pleased with our efforts but also cursing the 47 (FORTY-SEVEN) extras that we’d given away.

Jaguars started even stronger in the field than we did, thanks in part to a lack of those dreaded extras, with our top three unable to get away the man who’d done most of the damage with the bat. All three were back in the shed within the first five overs, with just 23 runs on the board. This bought Ed Sawyer and Herr Maxi together, with Maxi going on a rampage whilst Ed ably supported him from the other end. Maxi was fortunate to survive a dropped catch at long on early on and would go on to punish the Jaguars for their mistake. Together they put on 108 when Ed top edged it back to the bowler for a well made 36. With a couple of big hitters to come, we fancied our chances. Sadly, both James and Maxi (62) were gone in quick succession and those chances took a big blow. Shriram and Ujjwal tried their best but it just got away from us, with Ujjwal and Jon dismissed off the final two balls of the innings with us on 162/8, 14 runs short. Jaguars gave away a fair few extras of their own, but the difference between the two overall scores was almost entirely in there. 

Progress is being made and we’re getting closer again to the other Catalan teams. This league won’t be going our way, but watch out for us in the next one! We’re coming for ya!

Sam Phillipps