Zimbabwe 'scoop' thriller from under The Proteas!
On a cool Autumn night in Kolkata, two teams from the African continent gathered to play a match leading up to the championship tournament. Heath Streak, making a comeback, won the toss and chose to bowl first against a formidable batting line-up, made to look even more so because of the unbeaten 35-0 steak of the Proteas under coach MuchMore. Streak being quietly confident of his ragtag group of bowlers to keep them in check decided to open the bowling with E.Redmond & Mohaire (No idea of their real names!).
Streak soon found out why the South African juggernaut is undefeated as Smith and Amla (?) flailed the bowlers to all parts of the ground, despite the two early wickets by the opening bowlers. The score stood at 71/2 in 7 overs with the spinner's first over going for 10 runs, the South Africans were destined to make a daunting total.
Streak turned to his fastest bowler (Andy Blignaut) for help and sure enough Andy brought in some control and got an edge or two from the batsmen, although none of them carried. Then came the captain's moment of inspiration, he brought back Mohaire who struck twice in his 3rd over, going for only one run. A run-out ensued on the last ball of the over, making it 86/5 in 9, suddenly the Zimbabweans were back from the dead!
Price was brought back and although he went for 10 odd runs, he took another wicket to dent SA's chances further. The captain, understanding the task brought himself on and managed to take another wicket, making the scoreline 105/7 in 12 overs. However there was fight in the Proteas, AB was still standing. Slowly but surely they clawed back into the game, stroking Streak and the others for singles and doubles, AB shepherding the tail, wonderfully. Streak in his last over managed two wickets (or was one a runout?) to leave the Proteas at 159/9 in 19 overs with AB off-strike and Blignaut to bowl the last when lo and behold, the heavens opened up and rain poured forth (err...game crashed), delaying the match.
Play was resumed later and it was decided that the minnows would be chasing 160 in 19 overs, no easy feat against Steyn and company. Streak decided to lead from the fornt and open the batting with himself. This turned out to be a foolhardy move as Kallis, bowling the second over made quick work of him, getting him to drive on the up in the covers. Soon 6/1 turned to 6/2 as Price, sent in as a pitch-hitter, slogged it straight to mid-off. Smith sensing an inability on the Zimbabwean's part to play the medium pacers, held Steyn and brought in Albie Morkel who, along with Klimvolt (not his real name) reduced the opposition to 30/6 in 4 overs with Andy Blignaut and Mesukenyari (???) started their crawl towards the total and managed to take their team to 51/6 in 7 overs when the spinner was brought on. As he was about to bowl, theground was enveloped in darkness and the game had to be delayed yet again (I had a power outage, we restarted the game and I let him take 6 wickets in 7 overs whilst he let me score 54).
Play resumed with the spinner bowling the 7th over, when Blignaut, on 30 odd, decided to go berserk. Hoicks over fine leg took the total to 66 after 3 balls, when Smith moved the square leg fielder to fine leg, after which Blignaut proceeded to whack Paul Harris towards square leg for half a dozen and then some more! Momentum was clearly back with the Zimbabwaen's as Blignaut and Menyuskari annihilated Harris to seize control.All that was needed was a calm head to guide the run-chase...but alas lack of international cricket lead to nerves getting the better of Blignaut as he was cleverly deceived by a Kallisbouncer hitting it straight to short-midwicket, an over later Klimvolt tried the same ball to similar effect leaving the opposition at 105/8. The keeper,Mufizwan,walked in and immediately got off the mark with a single. A cautious approach took the team to 120/9 with 7 overs remaining, when Masaketza had a rush of blood and he tried for a slog, managing to sky the ball up in the air to the captain himself. With 40 runs needed in less than 7 overs, surely the game was finished...or so we thought.
Mufizwan and Ebraham decided to forgo every other shot in favour of the scoop to fine leg and it worked to good effect. Smith kep on changing the field, alternating between geting the fine leg fielder squarer and finer, forward and back but it seemed to have no effect as Ebraham skillfully kept tapping it to that region all the while managing to keep most of the strike. The winning shot finally came at the end of the 18th over as the minnows beat the world's best team with a wicket and an over to spare to end coach MuchMore's run of 35 undefeated games to an end.
Man of the match: Andy Blignaut
Lag: yes, but not enough to make the game unplayable
Blunder: Both teams forgot no custom field rule!
