Mt Lofty B grade stumble at the last post

Stoph, if you'd rather local cricket isn't canvassed in this format please let me know.

Mt Lofty B grade commenced the day's play at 0/4 chasing 156 on what had become the wettest oval in history. The school on whose oval we played had brightly left automatic sprinklers operating when we received almost continual rain all week. This left the oval as a quagmire and so 156 felt like 206.

Your truly was at the crease on an overnight score of 2 not out. The purpose for us openers was to be there an hour later at drinks and we were looking good for the first 45 minutes until a change of bowling got me unstuck. The ball came on much slower than I anticipated and an attempted back-foot puch into cover came off the bat much straighter and into the mits of a lunging fielder at a short mid-off. I was gutted. After feeling so comfortable at the crease and waiting for those bad balls I had thrown it all away. The next man in pulled a ball after being in for 20 seconds and put it down the throat of a deep square leg. Wickets continued to fall until a 6th wicket partnership which went through an entire session (1 hour). We needed 30 runs off 15 overs with 3 wickets in hand and fell 12 runs short. There was roughly 5 fours for both innings which gives an indication of the slowness of the oval. We know that had we been batting the previous week many shots would have resulted in more runs but that's the way it goes.

Personally I am disappointed in myself for listening to my batting partner advising me of the quickness of a bowler. Who knows whether I actually adjusted my shot to accommodate this but the lesson I learned was to never again listen to advice on what a bowler will or might do. Just bloody play each ball on its merits. One of the blokes remarked how Greg Chappell never wanted to know whether a bloke was bowling outswingers or legcutters as it promoted pre-meditating rather than just watching the ball and playing it appropriately. I agree. After seeing off the opening bowlers and feeling bloody good at the crease I missed a great opportunity to just bat time with the run rate not being an issue and accumulating runs. Oh well.

I hope you fellas had more success!