Don’t be sad that it’s over, be happy that it happened
- Shamsul Kazi
- Aug 21, 2017
- 3 min read
J. Sharma 88, A. Panju 50, K. Chaudhary 46*
R. Corrigan 7/not many
Alas this isn’t the Hollywood C-grade sports movie about a rising underdog team taking on the competition goliaths that I wanted it to be.
It all started last Saturday. Our first game at 7th Brigade Park, a stone’s throw away from a shopping centre in Chermside, not sure anyone’s heard of it though. It was our first game in a semi-final in 3 years and 4 seasons of cricket. It was our time.
Or so we thought. But Macgregor has other ideas. Fresh with 4 exemptions for the game Macgregor were coming in with red hot form while we were on the slide having lost the last three on the trot.
It showed. On a spongy green wicket, losing the toss proved to be a death sentence. We struggled to handle the variability in the pitch early on and the Masters took full advantage of the conditions. Skittled for a mere 114.
Macgregor would then come out to bat out the rest of the day for the loss of two wickets and a lead of 70 at stumps on day 1.
Fast forward a week and having lost the first innings it would take a miracle to salvage anything from this game.
However, that’s exactly what the captain had up his sleeve. With early chances gone begging, Corrigan took it upon himself to bowl a spell of fire and venom. The pitch having evened out over the week now had a bit of pace and bounce and Corrigan took full advantage. From being 2/187, Macgregor would end up all out on 208. Corrigan the destroyer, and almost snagging himself a hat-trick in the process.
The game was back on. The equation was simple. Score enough runs in a session and then bowl them out again. Easy, right?
Well the batting rocked up. Sharma and Panju making another make-shift opening combination since the departure of Douglas to god knows where. The pair would combine for an opening stand of nearly 150 as both put on half centuries before Panju was caught in the deep trying to further accelerate.
This brought Chaudhary to the crease and boy oh boy wow wee, did you need to be there to see this. He took one ball to get his eye in and then he was away. No one was safe. Not the bowlers, not the fielders, not the spectators, because that ball could go anywhere and it wasn’t going slowly.
Sharma would continue to play a cameo to Chaudhary before being runout trying to steal an extra run and Masters came to the crease and his lightning zip between the wickets accumulated more to the total. Tea break came and the Doctors gave themselves three overs to get as big a lead as possible, ending up on 120 ahead before declaring and sending in Macgregor one final time. One final throw of the dice.
It wasn’t to be as things got off to a shaky start with even Kazi contracting the catching yips that have plagued the team in recent times. The Doctors would take two out of the 10 that was required but that was all they managed and with that the season came to an end. Not the end that we dreamed of, but an end that means this story goes on.
