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Falcons Survive in Low-Scoring Squabble
by Evan Hitchman
Summer has well and truly come to Japan, a little late than usual. The Wombats did the unconventional method of getting to Fuji anyway they could. Thanks to Vig and Ken/Jano the majority of the team drove down in cars with a couple of exceptions taking the Shink.
Despite the heavy traffic and someone (Vig) getting his car lost, the Wombats met at the ground roughly (ish) on time to warm up, not that we needed much warming up and get ready for the match ahead.
Alex went out to the middle and won the toss and chose to bat. The Wommies fancied their chances with a strong batting and bowling line up, confidence was in the air.
Daniel Mee and Muhammad Ali headed out to the middle to face a rather quick Naveen Negi for the Falcons. Both dealt with the fast opening bowler well and when it came to the second over Daniel had a field day knocking the opening spin bowler across the park. With a good solid opening partnership of 45 unfortunately Ali got caught through a good delivery.
Alex came into bat and confidence was still in the air. With a tough outfield, 2’s were a premium and a 4 was a great hit. Alex batted to get himself in but once again the same bowler who got Ali got Alex, but still the Wommies were 57-2. Sad to say Zubair got done the same way as the two before him but once again 69-3, the Wombats were in a good position with the outfield the way it was playing. Ken Dobson on JCL debut came in and held the crease nicely but got lured into a dab of a bat which went straight down one of the Falcons throats.
81-4, this is where the game changed. England has seen some collapses, but this was one for the ages sadly. The next 7 wickets went for 12 runs. Good bowling, bad shots and good catches swept through the middle and bottom order of the batting. Final run total 93 all out. At the lunch break, most people were frustrated and a bit perplexed as to how we had collapsed so badly. Shout out to Daniel Mee who scored 44 in a patient and very good innings keeping the team together.
Some words of wisdom from Alex and Vig and the Wombats spirit was back. Knowing our bowling attack and our new opening bowler, there was still positive energy in the air.
Big Jano Venter, opened the bowling with some good fast bowling but their openers knew the run total and tried to be patient. Down the other end Pramod Singh came firing his spin bowling down at the batsman grabbing the first wicket with a great catch from Alex, low down to his right. THE WOMBATS WERE IN BUSINESS! First change Daniel Mee was ready to go after his good knock. He quickly got the second opening batsman with some great bowling and a brilliant catch from Ali behind the stumps.
3 runs later Pramod came charging in again and got the number 4 plum in front of his stumps, 30-3, game on! Pramod once again came in keeping his medium pace spinners going and a tactical genius move by the Captain Alex to get them swinging for a top edge paid dividends with a top edge, Rasika and James looked at each other wondering who will go for it. Rasika made the call and caught a towering catch, which never looked in doubt! 36-4!
The next wicket fell just 11 runs later when some stupid running by the Falcons made an easy run out by Ali. 1 run later the number 3 batsman went after a textbook half track ball offering a tough catch on the boundary, brilliantly taken by Zubair! IT LOOKED ON.
However, a good stand by the number 7 & 8 batsman set the Wombats back with good batting, taken their opportunities well and patience. Jano came back into the attack and a good bowl that nipped off the seam bowled the number 7. 83-7 with 11 runs to win with 3 wickets spare spirits were still high. 2 runs later Vig came into the attack the got the 8 batsman with LBW.
2 wickets needed; 9 runs required. Unfortunately, it wasn’t too be and Falcons batted their way to victory.
A disappointing defeat, to probably a lesser side but they deserved to win on the day and took their chance.
Huge thanks goes to Jarrad for sorting the ground out the week leading up to the game and on the morning itself, it played the best it could. Evan and Himan for the scoring as well as Corey for coming and helping in anyway he could. The Wombats go again in the T20 Cup, Sunday 16th August hoping to gain that winning feeling again.
| Tokyo Wombats CC vs Tokyo Falcons CC |
| Japan Cricket League 2020 (Div. 1), Fuji 2, Shizuoka, August 8, 2020 |
| Toss | Tokyo Wombats CC |
| Umpires | Max CC |
| Result | Falcons won by 2 wickets |
| TWCC MoM | P Singh |
| Tokyo Wombats CC Innings: 93 (28.2 overs) |
Batsmen | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR | |
| D Mee | c S Dawar*† b B Bisht | 44 | 48 | 3 | 3 | 91.67 |
| M Ali† | c S Dawar*† b T Perera | 15 | 24 | 2 | 0 | 62.50 |
| A Patmore* | c S Dawar*† b T Perera | 2 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 10.00 |
| Z Bappi | c S Dawar*† b T Perera | 2 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 28.57 |
| K Dobson | c B Bisht b A Mehrotra | 5 | 24 | 0 | 0 | 20.83 |
| J Shearer | b N Negi | 2 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 10.00 |
| V Bandi | c A Kumar b B Bisht | 4 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 30.77 |
| J Sanderson | b A Panwar | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| P Singh | c A Kumar b A Panwar | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| J Venter | b N Negi | 1 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 25.00 |
| R Chandimal | not out | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Extras | (b 1, lb 1, w 14, nb 2) | 18 | ||||
| TOTAL | (10 wickets) | 93 |
| Fall of wickets |
| 45-1 M Ali†, 57-2 A Patmore*, 69-3 Z Bappi, 81-4 K Dobson, 81-5 D Mee, 87-6 V Bandi, 88-7 J Sanderson, 88-8 P Singh, 88-9 J Shearer, 93-10 J Venter |
Bowling | O | M | R | W | wd | nb | Econ |
| N Negi | 4.2 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1.62 |
| A Chawla | 1.0 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18.00 |
| M Kapil | 2.0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5.00 |
| A Mehrotra | 7.0 | 1 | 21 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3.00 |
| T Perera | 4.0 | 1 | 17 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 4.25 |
| A Panwar | 5.0 | 0 | 12 | 2 | 8 | 0 | 2.40 |
| B Bisht | 5.0 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1.20 |
| Tokyo Falcons CC Innings: 96/8 (26.1 overs) |
Batsmen | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR | |
| B Bisht | c A Patmore b P Singh | 1 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 20.00 |
| K Naig | c M Ali† b D Mee | 12 | 17 | 0 | 1 | 70.59 |
| A Chawla | c Z Bappi b R Chandimal | 15 | 53 | 1 | 0 | 28.30 |
| D Singh | lbw b P Singh | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 16.67 |
| S Dawar*† | c R Chandimal b P Singh | 4 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 66.67 |
| A Kumar | run out (M Ali†) | 6 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 33.33 |
| M Kapil | b J Venter | 19 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 105.56 |
| A Panwar | not out | 13 | 27 | 1 | 0 | 48.15 |
| A Mehrotra | lbw b V Bandi | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 |
| T Perera | not out | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 125.00 |
| N Negi | dnb | |||||
| Extras | (b 1, lb 1, w 18, nb 0) | 20 | ||||
| TOTAL | (8 wickets) | 96 |
| Fall of wickets |
| 2-1 B Bisht, 27-2 K Naig, 30-3 D Singh, 36-4 S Dawar*†, 47-5 A Kumar, 48-6 A Chawla, 83-7 M Kapil, 85-8 A Mehrotra |
Bowling | O | M | R | W | wd | nb | Econ |
| J Venter | 5.0 | 0 | 28 | 1 | 9 | 0 | 5.60 |
| P Singh | 8.0 | 1 | 19 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2.38 |
| D Mee | 7.1 | 1 | 27 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3.77 |
| R Chandimal | 3.0 | 0 | 13 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4.33 |
| V Bandi | 3.0 | 0 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2.33 |
Catches
- Zubair, safe hands on the boundary to one that went very high.
Dropped Catches
- Vig – a dolly at mid on that went in then out then in then out before spilling the load all over the floor…
- Patmore – a high ball in the deep. Not easy without the gloves!
Quotes
- Corey – “You can’t get a duck if you’re the scorer!” – sledging those in the team who weren’t in the runs!
- Somebody said: “In India, we put a cast on it” (in reference to a bee sting). Ev replies: “Which caste?”
Great Moments in Sport
- Dan for a nice 40 odd and a couple of huge 6’s too.
- Pramod opening the bowling with eight overs on the trot and taking 3 for not many
Dummy Spits
- James – one for the ages! After a duck on JCL debut getting clean bowled, came back and smashed the bat into the ground, taking a bit wedge of the bat with it! Bet he wish he made that much contact with the ball!
Golden Thong Nominations
- Ev – for mixing up Zubair and Pramod, again! For his entire spell of 8 overs! A very bemused Zubair was given a slap on the ass by Ev at drinks break as he said “great bowling mate” and gave him a very confused look!
- Team nomination for losing 7/12 after being 3/81 – WTF guys!
- Dino – for being stung by a bee!
