The old adage is that you should start with a bang. Sport is but one aspect of life where establishing an advantage early on can be vital to achieving victory. This is exactly what the USA did in their match against Namibia at North County CC's Inch ground through the person of Steven Taylor.
The beefy left-handed opening bat took on the Namibian attack with high class back foot shots augmented by drives and a little bit of luck. In the first over he edged Englebrecht at catchable height through the slips for four, but the slip positioning of one-and-a-half and three-and-a-half left far too much gap.
His fifty came up in the ninth over, and at the end of the mandatory power play he had 64, his partner Mirza 11 and the total was 89, indicating the Namibia were contributing to their own predicament. The bowling power play was taken immediately, a bit more discipline was evident, and Mirza was lbw to Coombe in the 15th over for 14 out of 122.
Taylor was joined by the even more ample Sewdial, who started off with a brace of fours then was dropped at short extra cover. Taylor completed his hundred in the eighteenth over then flat-batted J Baard to S Baard in the 20th for 102 out of 150, a quite excellent innings from a player of high talent. It would be a shame if he were lost in the cul de sac of American cricket.
The cricket became ordinary for a while, but at the end Amarnath Persaud with 40 and Suri with 55* batted very well to pick up the pace and get USA to 312-6. J Baard had the very good return of 3/28 among the carnage, and Coombe, S Baard and Groenewald bowled better than their figures suggest.
The lunchtime beef casserole was very tasty, as was the pavlova dessert and, suitably refreshed, the Namibians buckled down to the task of scoring at a run a ball from the outset. J Baard was caught in the 5th over for 13 out of 32, so thus far they were on target. Myburgh took a while to get going and survived an easy chance.
van Vuuren became more positive and fluent, and after taking three boundaries off Sandhu's first over was disgusted to be given out lbw for 43. Or that's my surmise. My Afrikaans isn't up to scratch, but I don't think he was saying "Yes, that was a pretty good decision, I went across my crease instead of properly forward!"
81-1 in the 12th over became 107-5 in the 20th, either side of a one hour stoppage for rain, and it looked eazy-peazy for the USA. But the chunky Lotter and the slim Erasmus battled well, and Erasmus started to bat well. As the partnership developed the USA coaching staff grew noisy up on the balcony, berating their charges and getting up my nose, anyway.
Erasmus had reached 54 and was furious with himself when he holed out off the perservering Suri after a 90 run partnership. Groenewald joined Lotter, was dropped by Taylor behind the stumps, and the Namibians just wouldn't lie down. The USA management started setting the field and calling the bowling changes from the balcony, which I didn't think was allowed.
Lotter hit three successive boundaries as he passed 50, and the batting power play yielded 44 runs. The coaches didn't blame themselves for this, but did congratulate themselves when Ahmad returned to dismiss Lotter for 67 and Groenewald for 24. Nine, ten, Jack subsided to 266 all out in the 47th over.
Ahmad took 4/60, Shahid 2/36 and Suri 2/37. Monty Panesar lookalike Sandhu revealed himself to be a genuine clown, unlike the loudmouths on the balcony. Namibia can take a lot of pride in how they dealt with an uphill struggle after MotM Steven Taylor's brilliant innings.
Cheers,
Stu.
www.studaultrey.com
