Highlander999
ICC President
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2006
- Location
- London
Wickets peg back Durham
"Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me,
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me,
Dont cha, dont cha,
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was raw like me,
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was fun like me,
Dont cha, dont cha.
"Oy, Simon mate, I reckon you have some serious issues. Personally I feel that your a closet gay and that one day your going to come out, more then likely in the showers. When that happens I want to be as far away from you as I can
""Don't slag off the Pussycat Dolls, Tom, they are iiiiimense"
"If you say so :sarcasm"
Of course this all was a subtle ploy to put the Durham batsmen off. I knew Cooky wasn't gay (I hoped) and I also knew he didn't like the Pussycat Dolls (he was more of a Spice Girls fan
) However, with such a low total on the board by us we needed to use such tactics to try and put Di Venuto and Smith off.I reckon it was a good tactic and I think that it was this which got us the breakthrough, via your's truly (I'll take a bow now
) Smith the Durham skipper had been looking to play his shots a bit more now that he was settled in. He decided to try a cheeky little glance of his legs down to fine-leg. What he didn't account for (and neither did I to be honest :o) was the sudden reverse swing which meant the ball thumped into his pads. I was off doing a Broad running down the pitch knowing he was out, not looking at the umpire. Smith was walking back to the pavillion and Durham were now 47/2.
Dizzy was there holding the ball, with a very puzzled look on his face,
"How the hell did this reverse swing?"
"Not got a clue, mate, but I'm not complaining. We need a bit of luck every now and then."
"Haha, I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering if you'd been fiddling with it
""This is me, you are talking about mate. The limit's of my ability to change things, is limited to swapping light-bulbs."
I was just as stunned as Jason at the way the ball was reverse swinging in the 15th over, but I wasn't going to start complaining. We had got rid of Smith only to have him replaced with a much more dangerous player. Chanderpaul!!!!
Whilst he walked out, a replay of my delivery came onto the screen with a tracker on it afterwards, showing the reverse swing. The only remark Cooky made was how big my bum looked. There really is no pleasing some people
I was actually pretty nervous about having to bowl to Chanderpaul. I had bowled to him once before in the 20/20 I had played for Kent versus the West Indies, but this was a whole new ball game. As he adopted his unsual crab stance at the crease I was just trying to re-assure myself that he is just like any other batsmen and that as long as I put the ball in the right areas he was not going to cart me around the ground. Plus his side were in danger so he was going to have to play a pretty defensive game, I wasn't expecting him to come charging down the pitch to me, so hopefully I could put some nice, agressive bowling down there and cause him a few problems.
All I can say is that, Chanderpaul must have had his mind elsewhere today, because if this is what international batsmen are like then England, here I come. Chanderpaul had just moved onto 3 and I was back again causing him a few problems in the 17th over. He played and missed the first 2 balls, the third ball he left. On the fourth ball, he must have had a rush of blood to the head as he stepped right across his stumps to try and swat me over square leg. All I did was keep it full, he totally missed it, and was plumb LBW :happy
I couldn't believe it, this was my biggest wicket to date, the legendary Chanderpaul, LBW to little old me, what was the world coming to? :laugh
Everyone came running in and Mark came running up to me from behind the slap and started patting me so hard on the back that I thought he might have slipped a disc. Those wickie gloves sure do pack a punch
The morale amongst us all was pretty high and we knew that we had got the biggest wicket in the Durham camp. However, Di Venuto was still going good and England star Paul Collingwood was walking out to the crease. He had been in awesome form over the winter in Bangladesh and we knew it would be a tough ask to get him and Di Venuto out. Needless to say I was certain I would give 110% with every ball, but the big question was it too big of a task for us with such a small total on the board? Only time would tell....
.
