Mighty 4s take Winning Draw against Acton

The Mighty 4 arrived at the North Acton Recreational Ground looking forward to the top of the table clash, with a very strong side. But as the team arrived at the ground with the oppo setting up the stumps and putting out the flags, the groundsman revealed his piece of paper with the day’s events and Acton weren’t actually listed to play on any of the squares. Our opposition weren’t deterred by this and after winning the toss, Pistol send the hosts in to bat.

After one ball though, the groundsman came on to the field with his trusty piece of paper, saying that the team who were listed to played on our square were here, and that they wanted the ground! After ten minutes of squabbling, we we allowed to continue, but soon after, the groundsman’s boss arrived with more pieces of paper and the two grounds people, plus the “other” skipper stormed onto the ground. This took another fifteen minutes of arguing, before it was all agreed that our match could continue as is. Farce, but could have been worse!

The Acton innings started with good bowling from the new look opening partnership of George and Sammy Masud, who beat the bat regularly. After George’s first seven over spell of 0/20, Pistol came on and his first three overs went for 19, regularly shooting balls onto the batsmen’s pads and getting punished for it. The skipper had already told Dykie that he was to come on next over when Dave and Pat informed Pistol that they were actually swinging a foot, so Dykie’s spell was deferred. With a better line selected after the new information coming to light, Pistol picked up wickets in his next three overs and had the ball moving all over the place, drying up the free scoring run spree. Sammy completed an excellent 13 over spell, finishing with 1/49 and could have easily had 3 or 4 more. An amazing catch full length dive on the pitch by Chrissy gave Pistol another as Guarav replaced Sammy, and bowled OK without luck (0/41 from 7).

Georgie returned as Pistol continued to collect wickets and finally ended with a first-ever seven wicket haul to end with 7/69 from 20.4 overs. Georgie (1/35 from 14) clean bowled their number ten, before Pat threw down the stumps to complete the innings in the 55th over, leaving the Mighty 4s 45 overs to knock off the 212 runs to overcome the Acton total.

Our innings started brightly with Richard Verity (“The classiest batsman at the Midd”, Sam Masud 2015) elegantly cracking 8 off the first over, and things were looking quite comfortable. But with Gaurav (13 from 13) and Richard (19 from 20) falling in quick succession, Marc and Tom came together and things tightened up. At drinks after 25 overs we were 96/2 needing more than six an over in the last 20 overs. Soon after Marc (33 from 60) fell trying to up the run rate and when Chrissy fell soon after, the Midd were 99/4 with the required run rate increasing.

When the incoming Pat was asked what the winning draw score was by one of the oppo players, Pat replied that we hadn’t calculated it as we were not interested in drawing games. An excellent partnership then followed between Tom and Pat (31 from 34) before Pat perished. With eight overs to go and the run rate needed more than 7, Pistol promoted himself and made a quick-fire 19 from 11 balls, including a huge six over long-off before falling to a catch on the long-on boundary, trying to repeat the trick. Sammy (3 from 3) and George (5 from 5) came in and tried to keep the runs flowing before falling, bringing Dave to the wicket with three overs remaining with 19 runs required.

The excellent running between the wickets which was ever-present during Tom’s innings continued as it came down to 8 needed off the last over, as they brought back their opening bowler. Two doubles off the first two balls left us one boundary away from the win with Tom on strike and four balls remaining. Hopes were high. A single to Tom, then a dot ball brought the equation even tighter before Dave took a single to leave Tom on strike with two to win from the last ball. A shortish delivery outside off gave Tom a chance but he gloved the ball to short third man and only a single was possible.

The scores were the same, but we had run out of overs, even though Acton had used ten more overs than us. Unbelievable.

Tom’s innings of 79 from 103 balls was very composed and confident and showed the quality of the player and picked up his second man of the match award from only two matches in the Fours.

The Mighty 4s were left ruing some poor fielding and a quiet ten over period in our batting. ONE MORE RUN!!! The result leaves us 9 points clear at the top and still undefeated in our quest for the 2nd Division title.