PATONG WINS NAILBITER!

Sunday, 21^st February 2010 – PCC V’s LCC. – This weeks Island Furniture League match saw two sides who are very evenly skilled battle out the day in possibly the best cricket match ever played, certainly the best in Phuket anyway.

Patong started the day off well when captain, Raju Seemant, won the toss and elected to field first however the Laguna openers were intent on sticking around and played strongly to be at the drinks break with the loss of only one wicket.

Laguna’s next session was a strong one with runs flowing freely and some wayward bowling causing Patong’s wickie, Martin Foster, all sorts of problems behind the stumps.  Controversy soon arose when a clear caught behind was taken and match umpire Vikki’s vision claimed to have been obstructed by the bowler.  A quite loud appeal was made and after consulting 2^nd umpire, Bernie, batsman Ravi showed good sportsmanship by walking.

Rollie Cooper managed a solid score of 38 runs without losing his wicket and captain Stuart Reading also posted 28 to round off their innings at 223 runs off the full 35 overs.  Again, Patong’s wayward bowling contributed 62 extras to the Laguna total, something that the boys will have to improve upon if they are really serious about contesting the finals.

Set 224 runs (at a run rate of 6.4 per over) to win, the Patong opening batsmen set about the task well, Martin Foster and Richard Desmond ticked over the scoreboard at around 7 runs per over to meet the task before both fell to some good bowling by Bruce Whitehead and Fazil Hamid.

Ian Lenton and Anthony Van Blerk were next in and steadied the ship with some nice stroke play and good running between the wickets.  At drinks Patong had reached 69 runs with 2 wickets down.

After the break, Ian was clean bowled by Bruce Whitehead with a nice Yorker, which brought the experienced Scarfy to the crease.  Runs continued to be scored well but slowly the run rate was increasing as the Patong batting was slowing down.

New recruit Matryn showed some good bowling for Patong but was also bowled neatly by Sameer Khan for a duck.  Skipper Raju then came to the crease and brought with him is renowned big swinging batting style.  After a short settling period, Raju started scoring some boundaries but also at the other end of the crease the Patong wickets continued to fall.  Dave Thomas was given out LBW, even though he was half way down the pitch, and Patong was looking in trouble at 7 wickets for 144 runs, still 70 short of the total required.

Roger Talbot was next in and also tried to settle into bat.  Some nice singles were scored however the required run rate had risen to over 9 and a loud prompt from the team mates saw Roger hitting the ball over the fence for six on the very next ball.  He managed a good score of 21 before being caught by Veroj off another Sameer delivery.

The Patong team were now very much into the tail ender batsmen when pace bowler Anil came in.  Most teams would have felt a little uneasy at the task ahead but Patong stuck to its guns and managed to get to the final two overs with only 18 runs required.

Both Anil and Raju took every opportunity that Laguna game them and were also helped by some more wayward bowling by Bruce Whitehead.  The tension was building and the crowd at the ground started to become vocal, cheering on the Patong boys for a huge victory.

Skipper, Raju managed to make the final runs with only 1 ball to spare giving Patong a remarkable victory and outright lead in the Island Furniture Cricket League.