YOU TORTOISE A LESSON!
Those in the twenty-three thousand capacity crowd at Cymru Gurgitaters CG who'd turned up to witness a helter-skelter deluge of runs and wickets in the all-out pursuit of net run rate, will probably have gone home disappointed this evening. Though in actual fact, what they were treated to was much much more precious - The Gurs have come of age! Perhaps not yet in the manner of a fine wine - More like the eruption of attitude which accompanies the onset of adolescence.
Everything was going according to plan at quarter past ten, when Gurs' Skipper, Strong/Resp Bat Patel won the toss and invited lowly 6th place Victoria Drivers to bat. With nothing at stake for The Drivers, (having fallen short of immediate safety in the top four but successfully avoided automatic relegation in the bottom two), Patel might have been justified in believing that all his bowlers would have to do was turn their arms over in order to set the dominos tumbling - Alas it wasn't to be! Seasoned AusieStrong/Strong wicketkeeper/batsman Summers and Strong Tenius latched on to a scattergun opening spell from Strong/Comp RM Wilde to get the visitors off to a solid start, but whereas in previous seasons when if one bowler caught a cold the others would start sneezing, today the more experienced Qual/Strong LM Bewers turned in a water-tight contribution from the other end, to ensure that the openers' run rate never once strayed beyond manageable proportions.
But, as impressive as Bewers' initial blast of 5/1/8/0 undoubtedly was, with the Drivers having resolutely clawed their way to 56/1, without too many signs of fallibility, it was time for The Gurs to rethink their strategy. And here too they demonstrated a new-found maturity - Gone were the bleeding heads after repeated banging against Plan A, to be replaced by new, cooler heads, ready to stand back from the situation and come up with a Plan B. So Patel withdrew seamers Bewers and Wilde, relaxed the attacking fields, and introduced the more sedate spin of Sup/Prof RHS Bridges M and Strong/Prof LHS Cash, to dramatic effect! Whilst Tenius continued to stand firm in the company of Drivers debutant Strong Hardy, the run-rate plummeted from 5.3 to 3.7, not to return above four until the 46th over.
However, whilst it's easy to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that this was the spell during which the match was decided, at the time, there remained ample nerves around the ground, as The Drivers glided their way to 155 at the forty over mark, without having lost another wicket. But fear not, Bewers was on hand to lend a draft of Dutch courage, with another murderous spell of 5/0/28/5, which ripped the guts out of The Drivers' middle order, starting with Tenius for a monumentally dull 73 (128). Resp/Feeb RFM Bent maintained his tenacious grasp on the B5 spot, as his frugal stint was rewarded with two further wickets, including that of Hardy, who'd grafted his way to 60 from 99 balls. The Hapless Wilde, (whose baffling nose-dive in form must be troubling Vayro with a promotion playoff looming large in just a fortnight), did at least rescue something from the day, bagging numbers ten and eleven to wrap up The Drivers' innings on 209 in the final over. Though his figures of 10/0/63/2 were conspicuous for all the wrong reasons when weighed against those of his colleagues: Bewers 5/36, Bent 2/41, Bridges M 1/33 and cash 0/28.
At the lunch break Vayro at least would have been breathing slightly more easily, as he alone of the Gurs contingent, knew that 250 miles away in Kent, 2nd Who's Your Daddy had only managed to limp to 207 A/O in their crunch match against 3rd Wrong'uns, who still harboured faint title hopes of their own. And his indigestion would have been further aided by the site of Rem/Prof Greening and Qual/Strong Staveley blasting their way to 42 inside the first six overs. However, for the first time in over a month, The Gurs weren't to post a hundred opening stand, as Greening brought to an end a run of five consecutive centuries with a tickle behind to Summers off Wilkerson for 17. And so began a study in contrasting batting styles. No.3 Noon battled against poor form and hostile bowling, punching bottom-handedly at the ball, whilst Staveley remained fluency personified. His one hundred exactly contained four leg-side boundaries, the sound of which was sufficient to crack old ladies' bones, and four Moorish cover Drives which could have been pored into a pint pot and been called Guinness. Yet the fable of the hare and the tortoise re-enacted itself once again, as it was to be the patience of Noon's 73* (102) rather than the deft touch of Staveley's 100 (102) which was to see proceedings to a conclusion. Mohammed ably nurtured Noon home, with a confident knock of 15* which did his chances of having his season's long contract extended no harm at all.
So not the NRR-Fest the fans had hoped for, but a crucial win nonetheless, as Who's Your Daddy turned around a seemingly hopeless situation to remain neck-and-neck with the Gurs on 40 points, going into the final week of the season.
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