Thrilla in Manila!

A last ball thriller at the Roehampton Oval left the 2s deeply disappointed that they couldn’t notch-up another win against spirited opponents.

Wallington won the toss and inserted the 2s on a hot afternoon. RCC were soon 2 wickets down and needing to build a partnership to dig themselves out of their predicament. Ross Cameron (76) batted with excellent judgement and shot execution to take the score from 6 for 2 when he came into bat, to 148 for 7 when he was finally out. A fine partnership of 42 at the end of the RCC innings left a difficult score of 190 for Wallington to chase. Chris Edwards (34) deserves much praise for hitting the ball cleanly at the death and it’s great to have Duncan Flynn (29) back in the middle order providing a steady head.

At tea RCC were fairly confident that they had enough runs on the board. Unfortunately, due to excellent hitting from the Wallington lower order it was not meant to be. This defeat was all the more difficult to take as RCC had reduced Wallington to 38 for 5 after fine opening spells from Ash Naumann (3 for 42) and Ross Cameron (2 for 50). Even at 142 for 7 the 2s still had a decent opportunity to win the game. Ultimately, it was Wallington who kept their heads and smashed 50 in the last few overs to take the game to a last ball win.

There are many lessons to be learnt for the 2s from this game (the importance of catching, death bowling and being ready for the ball when it arrives) but nothing can be taken away from the Wallington number 8 whose 76 not out turned the game on its head. Sometimes you just have to praise the opposition who play out of their skins to win a game – well done Wallington CC.

Bizarrely, even though the 2s dropped 20 points on the top 2 teams in the league, we actually moved one place up the ladder to 3rd after this result. A combination of heavy defeats to teams around us and picking up 7 bonus bowling and batting points keep us in the mix. Next week we have a great opportunity against one of those teams above us to haul back the points lost. One thing we are learning about this league is that it looks like any team can beat their opposition on any given day, which makes for an exciting summer ahead.

Man of the match – Ross Cameron.
(report by Hemish Gunasekara)