Doctors score more than Australia, unfortunately the other team did too.
- Shamsul Kazi
- Nov 13, 2016
- 3 min read
Gammin Dogs 10/142(15.2) DEF PDCC 7/122(20.0)
T. Pham 4/19(4), A. Panju 2/17(2.0) & 32
After the celebrations of completing half their medical degree the previous night/current morning, half the Doctors team emerged out of the pleasantness of their cooled rooms and Berocca mixes to take on the Gammin’ Dogs on a hot and sticky day in Tingalpa.
The 2-0 record meant nothing today as this was not the team that had fronted up previously, both in personnel and personality as many struggled to exist without their sunglasses. In this week were veterans Nathan Morgan and John Cross as well as Gus Douglas and Raja Chinthamuneedi, with new players Barker, Shahid, Gupta and Prakash all unavailable.
The toss was won by Rob Corrigan and with half his men struggling with the basic concept of heat, including the man himself who was reportedly playing on two hours sleep, he decided that field in the 35 degree, 70% humidity was a good idea.
But in his men went, with Morgan given the new pill from the Wynnum Road End and Kazi, sporting a new Mitchell Johnsonesque moustache for movember (if you want to donate: http://mobro.co/shamsul), from the Pavilion End.
The new mo seemed to bring Kazi superpowers as he steamrolled through the top order like Johnson did with international line-ups. Not really, the Dogs’ openers seemed to like the taste of the two men as the first four overs resulted in 54 runs, 30 of which came from Kazi’s second over, having gone for a mere three in his first. This meant a change was required, and a change is exactly what happened with Tony Pham being brought on to replace Morgan and Kazi resorting to off spin for his final two overs.
Slowing down the pace appeared to work with Pham securing the first wicket, with Kazi also taking one in his third. Kazi would go on to finish his four in one spell finishing with figures of 1/54, his worst on record, and leave the field as the not-so-super-sub afterwards. Pham continued from the other end and was key to the Doctor’s pulling back into the game as he took two wickets in a double wicket maiden and would eventually finish with figures of 4/19 from his four.
Following with the theme of slowing down the pace of the ball, Panju was brought on from the other end and took another wicket and the Dogs had lost 3-0 and were 5-114 at the hald way mark. The fight back was to continue, with stunning hands in the field from Chinthamuneedi and Douglas as well as great groundwork from Panju who was dashing all over the field. The Dogs would be all out shortly after for a total of 142.
The batting innings of the Doctors started with promise with the usual pairing of Chinthamuneedi and Panju and the two maintained a solid early run rate of 5.00 runs an over. However, just as the pair were putting a bit of gas on the pedal, both fell in quick succession and that put more pressure on the incoming batsmen.
This was followed by a stunning catch to dismiss Jo Corrigan and all of a sudden the Doctors were in trouble. The in-form Andrew Summers and Zemar Vajuhudeen at one point seemed to have redirected the ship back on course, in the mid-afternoon shower, but plans were soon to again be stifled when the scenes from the WACA were recreated when Vajuhudeen was given out walking down the pitch so far that this reporter is sure that DRS would have even been able to make a decision given its three metre limit.
Summers fell shortly swinging across the line and Douglas was caught on the boundary after what looked like an above the waist no-ball, sorry, full toss and from therein the Doctors never stood a chance of making the runs as Rob Corrigan and Sachin Perera toughed it out in the end to fall 20 runs short of the target.
