Highlander999
ICC President
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2006
- Location
- London
Tuesday 2nd April
With the ball being thrown to me at such a crucial stage I had to perform well. Keeping it tight would not be enough. I had to get wickets. Mongia and Habib had begun to build a solid partnership, with Habib capitalising on being dropped earlier on. Because I was bowling in the powerplay overs, I had fine-leg and had just pushed mid-on back out of the cirlce. Speaking with David we decided to bring mid-on back into the circle and encourage the batsmen to go over the top, hopefully not timing it and getting caught.
The plan worked. Bowling to Mongia I spun my fingers across the ball, really slowing it down, about 65mph. Mongia did not pick it up, plus he tried smash the ball back over my head. He ended up spooning it straight towards Mike at mid-on. A simple catch, but you can guess what happened. He dropped it. I was furious. Mike straight away apologised to me, it was just a case of a school-boy error.
That incident pretty much summed up our day. We now had had both batsmen dropped of very simple catches. By the sevententh over, Leicstershire were 61/2 with only 53 more runs required for victory. The fielders heads had begun to drop and I needed to find a wicket and fast. The skip was trying to encorage us:
"Come on lads. It's not over yet. A couple of quick wickets and we'll be right back in this!!"
It didn't have much of an effect.
With the Foxes still edging towards our total, we needed a breakthrough. Finally I managed to make one. Mongia had recently been looking to drive me quite a lot. With two slips, this suited me, however it was a risky ploy. The risk played of however when a ball on his off-stump, nipped back and caught the inside edge of his bat. It shot into his middle and off shattering the stumps. The team all went up, celebrating. It was a crucial wicket, and I felt it was well deserved. Could we do the impossible?
Ackerman was the new batsman with the Foxes now three down. There was still a bit of cloud cover and with the new batsman in, I had been allowed to keep two slips. It was fast becoming the Tom Baker show though as I soon picked up my second wicket. Ackerman had just slog swept me for four which had knocked my confidence. I decided to put one back of a length. Ackerman decided to do a risky leave and the ball appeared to brush his pad. I went up appealing but it was only me. However the umpire slowly raised his finger.
This was an amazing fightback. The team were now really fired up. Everyone was yelling encouragement to everyone else. We were a team with belief again.
With the Foxes now 71/4 they were in a bit of trouble. If we could pick up just a couple of more wickets we would be in a very good position. Could me and the team do it, or would Habib continue to thwart us?
With the ball being thrown to me at such a crucial stage I had to perform well. Keeping it tight would not be enough. I had to get wickets. Mongia and Habib had begun to build a solid partnership, with Habib capitalising on being dropped earlier on. Because I was bowling in the powerplay overs, I had fine-leg and had just pushed mid-on back out of the cirlce. Speaking with David we decided to bring mid-on back into the circle and encourage the batsmen to go over the top, hopefully not timing it and getting caught.
The plan worked. Bowling to Mongia I spun my fingers across the ball, really slowing it down, about 65mph. Mongia did not pick it up, plus he tried smash the ball back over my head. He ended up spooning it straight towards Mike at mid-on. A simple catch, but you can guess what happened. He dropped it. I was furious. Mike straight away apologised to me, it was just a case of a school-boy error.
That incident pretty much summed up our day. We now had had both batsmen dropped of very simple catches. By the sevententh over, Leicstershire were 61/2 with only 53 more runs required for victory. The fielders heads had begun to drop and I needed to find a wicket and fast. The skip was trying to encorage us:
"Come on lads. It's not over yet. A couple of quick wickets and we'll be right back in this!!"
It didn't have much of an effect.
With the Foxes still edging towards our total, we needed a breakthrough. Finally I managed to make one. Mongia had recently been looking to drive me quite a lot. With two slips, this suited me, however it was a risky ploy. The risk played of however when a ball on his off-stump, nipped back and caught the inside edge of his bat. It shot into his middle and off shattering the stumps. The team all went up, celebrating. It was a crucial wicket, and I felt it was well deserved. Could we do the impossible?
Ackerman was the new batsman with the Foxes now three down. There was still a bit of cloud cover and with the new batsman in, I had been allowed to keep two slips. It was fast becoming the Tom Baker show though as I soon picked up my second wicket. Ackerman had just slog swept me for four which had knocked my confidence. I decided to put one back of a length. Ackerman decided to do a risky leave and the ball appeared to brush his pad. I went up appealing but it was only me. However the umpire slowly raised his finger.
This was an amazing fightback. The team were now really fired up. Everyone was yelling encouragement to everyone else. We were a team with belief again.
With the Foxes now 71/4 they were in a bit of trouble. If we could pick up just a couple of more wickets we would be in a very good position. Could me and the team do it, or would Habib continue to thwart us?
: Suggest them to have a nice and hard catch practice, Tom! 
. Great presentation and a fantastic story 
