I, playing as Derbyshire, had a 40-over fixture against Leicestershire. Having lost all my 5 Pro40 games prior, I decided to just play a relatively young side.
I lost the toss and was made to field first, which didn't go well. Aside from my sole senior bowlers, Dean & Hunter, my bowlers went round the park as Leicestershire posted a fairly high total, 245-7.
With the required run rate over a run a ball, I had to go attacking but my intended pinch hitter, Wayne White went for just 3 and the wickets continued to tumble, leaving me in an almost unsalvageable position of 103-6 after 18 overs.
With the required run rate now up to 6.5, I felt my only chance was to stick my only top order batsman left, Akhil Patel, at full aggression and hope he managed to knock off the runs before I lost all my wickets.
To my surprise, it started to pay off and Patel shared a 7th wicket partnership of 47 from just 6.1 overs despite his partner, Sadler, making just 5 from 23 balls until he fell to Ackerman.
Hunter quickly followed, so I asked Patel to retain strike as well as score boundaries. It worked for a while but Patel eventually fell for a brilliant 115 from just 69 balls.
At 193-9, the writing was on the wall. My only saving grace was that Patel's effort had brought the required run rate down to around 5 an over, slightly more managable but still, with 53 runs to go, surely beyond my no. 10 & 11.
I started both on 3 bars aggression, adding a bar as they got more settled but every time I pressed play over I was just waiting for a fall of wicket. It never came though as they repeatedly knocked about 5 or 6 off each over despite the proliferation of exclamation marks until finally, with 2 overs left and just 1 run remaining, my no.11 Scott Ellison hit his 3rd boundary to take me to an unbelievable win.
