BREAKING: PDCC to change name to M. Boys CC, seeing as he does everything
- Shamsul Kazi
- Dec 18, 2017
- 4 min read
PDCC 7/199 (38.5) def Keep Walking 10/198 (49.2)
M Boys 115* & 5/32(10), N Jain 2/29(9.0)
Look some might say that this is a one-man team, and yes, he did take five wickets and sure he did score a century but really it was a team effort today. Let me start back at the start though.
Playing a catch-up game to make up for one previously lost to rain, the Pitch Doctors scrambled to formulate a team deep into the summer break. This meant the return of the enigma himself, J Schmidt.
The Doctors were back at Marchant Two, home of other famous victories for the year. A freshly cut Marchant deck, looking like what you’d expect of a Marchant deck. It was humid, a crisp 30 degrees at the ground just before the start of play, and with his first brief as the fill-in captain, Shamsul Kazi can proudly stand tall next to his predecessors after following tradition of losing the toss and getting sent in to field.
It proved to be a good move with M. Boys picking up the first wicket in the first over, after an opener smoked one straight to Cross at mid-on. Boys could have had another in his following over were it not for a dropped catch at square leg. This would set the tone of the fielding effort for the day, but specialist substitute fielder, Nathan Kok, and Nilay Jain would show the team how it was done. Kok with an influential diving catch with his first touch of the ball for the club and Jain with a reflex catch off his own bowling.
At drinks, the opposition were 4/70 and the Doctors looked to firmly have the upper hand. This would continue after the drinks break as they continued to take regular wickets with Boys picking up five in total, Jain two, Morgan with one breaking a season long drought and Cross with one. The game seemed firmly in control at 9/114 heading in to the second drinks break.
But really this story, wouldn’t be much of a story if it ended there. With the first ball after the drinks break the ball was skied to Kok at mid-off and what can only be explained by the fact that the doctors catching problems are due to a rare contagious virus, he spilled the catch.
Things would only get worse for Kok after that. Like seriously, next ball as Kok was athletically diving to his left to chase down another drive, he would land awkwardly and injure, as the newly minted doctor described it, something in his hip.
A string of chances would then go down as the plucky last pair took all their chances accumulating run after run as they received life after life, only to be finally dismissed in the 50th over of the game, ending the innings on 198.
Now a score of 200 doesn’t seem like much effort to make, and to be honest it really isn’t. It is hard though when you’re 3-0 after the first over though. Yep, that’s three wickets lost in the first over for no runs scored. First to go was Douglas on the very first ball of the innings as he slashed one to point, next ball V. Sharma was caught plum in front of his stumps, and two balls later Chaudhary would nick it to slip.
In came the man himself, M Boys. Boys and Cross (who had been standing down the other end watching the carnage) would steady the ship somewhat before Cross would succumb to a good ball taking his stumps.
Boys and Shahid would take it to the drinks break, where despite the earlier carnage we were on level pegging with the opposition.
Shahid would then guide one straight to a wide first slip after the break and bring the potent combination of J Schmidt and M Boys together. This was the game breaking partnership. With aggressive blasting from Schmidt and pure cricket from Boys, the score would tick over 100 and Boys would make his half century.
Schmidt would eventually succumb to a freak catch at mid-wicket from a shot that looked destined for the boundary.
But there was no stopping the Boys train. Boyd would provide dependability from the other end, holding his own and rotating the strike to the dynamic hitter, hell even the fielders stopped running after the ball once it came off his bat.
Boys would get to 97 before things started to look shaky. An edge that dropped short of slip took him to 99 and a cover drive hit straight to the fielder who would then drop the ball took him to his century, and an aptly timed drinks break allowed the man to refocus.
Boyd couldn’t hold out with the end nearly in sight though, and with 18 runs left, that brought out Kazi. With 14 runs left, Kazi would take the strike and in his usual style of uncoordinated whacking the required runs came with two boundaries down the ground and a lucky edge for two to fine leg, a single would put Boys on strike and he took no time in finishing with another boundary.
The Doctors winning by three wickets. Oh, and did I mention that Boys did that after a night on the town and minimal sleep? Yeah, we think he’s a robot too.
