Thriller, but no cigar

Fine, cool sunny conditions saw a slight delay to the start as the Ålborg team survived a motorway accident on the way to Århus’ Stadium. Shaken&stirred, they won the toss and went in to bat as they were still on an adrenalin surge from the near-mishap. Mridul opened, with Josh, having promoted himself to opening bowler on this occasion, and both did look a little scary with the new ball. Hans (capt.) set the field and the traps, but Ålborg were having none of it. Jesper opened in his usual dogged fashion and stuck around with his compadre opening bowler, Jeppe, and they put on a few runs without giving away too many chances. Still, we were restricting them to less than 3.5 per over but could not ‘bag’ them despite a couple of wickets. During their middle order we failed to nail them. Yes, there were one or two misfields and a dropped catch, but we mainly gave away an increasing amount of extras (wides). Samanthe, our customary main bowling weapon, was now not up to his usual tricks because of a used ball and bowling from the wrong end of the ground. So, the rather ordinary looking Ålborg middle-order stuck around and pushed the run rate beyond 4 per over, allowing them into the game. The bowling continued to deteriorate with escalating costs and few wickets. Hans replaced Elias behind the wicket, after he had copped a few blows on the arm. Hans did remarkably well at stopping some leg-side wides from becoming 4s, and even managed a keeper-catch at second slip off a Hodge missile. Ålborg tolerated the change to spin bowling. Nick (leggies)&Anders (off) a little better than expected. Anindiya came on and got a couple of good scalps, then proceeded to undo himself with wides. Jens rolled the arm and got a few to swing in the wind, restricting the scoring. In the end, it really didn’t look good, with average bowling and fielding declining to poor. Do we have a concentration problem? Or do we put too much faith into one strike bowler? Certainly, 3 catches would have sealed it, instead of letting a below-average batting side get to above 110. First innings total 8 / 180. Hmmm. We undid ourselves with erratic bowling

Second innings: Undaunted by this gettable task, we set optimistically about it because we figured Jesper couldn’t bowl as tightly as he did in Ålborg and Deano’ was not with him. Samanthe and Jens clobbered a few out to begin with, and were well beyond the required 4.5 per over. Bowlers were giving it away and were being punished. Then Samanthe left and Jens pulled a muscle. In the ensuing runner-batting-circus, we capitalized with boundaries and good running. The score was 4/72 after 12 overs when Jens and Mridul left and things looked comfortable in the experienced hands of Hans, Anders and Mani to come, with a gettable 100+ and plenty of overs, and Nick and Josh down the order. The three of them were unfortunately not with it on the day, I’m sure they’ll say, but they tried but couldn’t quite lift it. Despite enough overs and not a lot of pressure it seemed. Mani played back to a length swinging ball, which is most unlike him in the nets. Hans hit nice and straight, looked good and looked to go on, so? Anders was not his customary punishing self on the ‘short-shit’ balls, maybe he was too aware that the responsibility rested with him. All-in-all things that will come to pass automatically. And had they known what formidable batting performance was to come, they could have relaxed a little and hit out. Nick&Josh stole the show, and here’s how: Nick kept his cool and his head down, blocking everything in sight, scampering off for the occasional single. Josh took inspiration from this, and did the same. Suddenly, there were 1s everywhere, and the field closed in. We held the required 4-5 per over, and Ålborg got frustrated. The singles were still abundant, and with the field close in, there were many shies at the stumps – only to result in overthrows and intensifying Ålborg frustration. With one or two massive 6s from Nick (and still keeping calculated cool), the result was closer. Suddenly just 40, then 30 away, and 6 or 7 overs. The small audience was growing in size, the chill caught in us all. Ålborg dropped a catch. Then missed a stumping. There was some appreciable yelling out there, and they were doing it…Though nothing was certain, we could even afford a wicket, and the remain batsman could carry it home with Elias or Roland. 11 to win off 24 balls. Double-disaster struck, with both Nick&Josh out shortly after each other. The score: 6 to win off 18 balls, Elias on strike, Roland down the other end. Last stand. Elias, looking comfortable enough with his prudent fwd defence, fails to rotate the strike at the end of the over…and BANG!! Easy catch at short silly mid off, with 7 fielders within 8m of the bat. No chance there. Roland, this is no fault of your own. You did what you had to do, and there is no blame – so take it easy. This is cricket, the greatest game of them all. To the rest of you, thanks for a memorable game, despite the result a fitting end and another chapter in the Ålborg-Århus saga. Jespers first comment: ‘Tak for sidst!’. To be continued;-b….

Århus batting: Nik: 39, Josh: 30, Jens: 27, Mridul: 26, Hans: 17, Anders: 14, Samanthe: 8, Mani: 3

– Jens Rolighed