3rd June – GMSL Away

The weather has been very kind to us so far this season. Tonight’s was the fourth straight game played in perfect conditions. The day’s clouds parted nicely for our visit to the Cambridge University Press ground, even if a fresh breeze was blowing in from mid off as the first over started.

Cricket is a slightly eccentric game, as is talking about the weather when there is nothing better to say. I’m sure GMSL’sbowlers would disagree – they might argue that Brian’s 2 for 2 off 2 overs is worth a mention, or Shane’s 2-19 from 3 overs and Paul’s 2-25 from his 3 overs – but this is the Sharks’ website, so although we shall try and be gracious in defeat (we’ve had a bit of practice this year), I am not going to waste this column bigging-up our arch-rivals.

We need the confidence boost – not them.

New signing Paul MJ playing only his second game for the Sharks (and perhaps only his second game since school 20 plus years ago), managed a classy looking 22 before he walked, stumped trying to get on the front foot against GMSL’s spin attack. Rumour has it that the square leg umpire was not at all sure he hadn’t made his ground, suggesting that he needed TV evidence to give that. In truth though, we are no more likely to get a camera crew to come and film than we are to win a game this year…

By the time Paul departed, the score was 48-4 in the eighth over. Hardly a disaster, Paul having taken us there with 4 fours in his 17 ball innings – we still had plenty of batting to come from players experienced at this level.

But is all went horribly wrong again when Jim Thorpe’s supercharged innings of 17 runs from 12 balls came to a premature end in the 12th over. 74-6 was on the board and Ralph batting at number five was quickly running out of partners. Or should that be Ralph batting at number five was trying to quickly run out his partners?

Club captain Jason Cole playing his first game of the season came to the crease when it became 77-7 with seven overs still to go but he was gone 2 overs later. The final man in was Alan, promoted to number 10 in the order but even if he had three legs, he still wouldn’t have made his ground in time as Ralph attempted a quick single. To be fair, it was a good shot, but an even better piece of fielding to first dive and stop the ball and then return it to the keeper who had the relatively easy task of taking the bails off.

Ho hum. 83 all out.

If there was any doubt over the result, it was gone after 4 overs and GMSL over a quarter of the way to victory. Some good tight bowling from the Sharks kept it close after that as the GMSL batsmen played Test Match Cricket. Pat (1-16 from 4 overs), Mayu (1-14 from 3 overs),Kev (0-6 from 2 overs) and Paul (0-9 from 2 overs). If anyone is superstition, look away now: Ralph scored 17 runs from 17 balls with the bat and took 1-17 bowling…

The inevitable end duly happened when Ralph bowled George for 19 and Adam came to the crease. George and Pete’s partnership was one of those you don’t really want to break in Twenty20 – but we did and it meant the end came sooner, Adam hitting 5 scoring shots to add the final 15 runs to the GMSL score.

So GMSL won by 6 wickets. The weather was nice though, didn’t you think?