Mad Dogs vs ANZACS (PICF) (5/3/07) by JPM

The ANZACS were somewhat misnamed, the Dogs fielding more Antipodeans than they could. But despite the limited connection with Australasia, the ANZACS turned out to be a pretty good team. Quirk lost his 14th straight toss, so the Dogs fielded at Philadelphia CC, just as they would have done had Quirk called correctly.

Boyke and Moore opened the Dogs' bowling, with combined ages of 101. Boyke's first over disappeared for 13, Moore's for 9, so looking ugly early. But the veterans reined the batsmen back a little by bowling accurately to carefully set fields. Moore removed Vithland for 11, an outside edge looping high to Quirk at point, then bowled J Botha for 1 with an inswinger that the new batsman missed completely. Pa Patel had been batting with hyper-aggression before Boyke trimmed the top of his off stump with a nice ball to send him back for 25. Moore and Boyke completed their good spells, to be replaced by Wolf and Harrison, who also bowled steadily, exceptionally so in the case of Harrison's early, tight overs, as ANZACS retrenched by batting steadily.

Prasanna replaced Wolf and removed Persaud for 23, a hard clip off the toes being well held by Moore above his head at square leg. Harrison then bowled Pr Patel for 25, and Prasanna got rid of K Patel for 17, to a toppling, high catch in the deep by Quirk a nice effort. Harrison's last couple of overs were slogged hard by Mackay, who then took a very long handle to Quirk, slogging him over and through the one side four times in an over on his way to 35 not out. Prasanna picked up 3 wickets at the death, bowling Rajaram for 7, D Botha for 4, before Percival ran down the wicket to the last ball of the innings, missed and carried walking as Bannerjee removed the bails.

The ANZACS total of 165 for 9 from 25 overs was pretty daunting due to the late acceleration. A rather venerable Dogs side dropped several catches, which didn't help.

Boyke 5-0-27-1
Moore 5-0-28-2
Wolf 3-0-15-0
Harrison 5-0-30-1
Prasanna 5-0-27-5
Quirk 2-0-28-0

We needed a good starft, and got one as Prasanna swatted the first ball for 4, and took another one off the same over. An early 4 for Lawrence saw the Dogs race to 17 from the first 2 overs. But the bowlers regained control, and the first wicket fell at 28 in the fifth over when Prasanna was run out in a calling muddle (19, 14 balls, 4 x 4).

Quirk found it hard to settle in his first innings of the season, but performed some complex mental calculations and decided he needed to start hitting the ball hard. Unfortunately, this tactic generally works best when the ball goes a long way in the horizontal plane, not a vertical one, and the skipper was caught for 2 (13 balls). Taiwo got his innings over with quickly, LBW for 0 (2 balls), before the Dogs last hope fell to another runout, Lawrence erring in the call and paying the price (13, 26 balls, 1 x 4). Harrison contributed a nice 4 through the covers before slogging round a straight one (9, 16 balls). Moore hung around for a few overs without looking convincing, surviving a stumping from the stood-back, ball-shying keeper only because it was a no-ball, but after putting on 20 with Santosh, Moore's pull went only to slip, out for 11 (25 balls). Santosh hit a catch for 6 (16 balls), Kanoff was bowled for 3 (7 balls), and the limping Bannerjee, batting with a runner, was run out for 3 (7 balls). Wolf, who had batted well, ended with 10 not out (20 balls), Boyke with 0 not out (0 balls), as the innings ended on 93 for 9, 74 runs short. To be blunt, we unfortunately didn't have the batting depth.