Match Facts
Date: Sunday, December 15, 2024
Location: Fairfield Park, Yarra Bend, Fairfield, VIC
Time: 1pm start
Captain: F1
Introduction
The Quokkas knew it was going to be a warm one, expecting a 32°C day with clear skies and did it deliver! 13 teammates joined in the day which helped with allowing the rotations in the field, although whilst writing this sentence, that number could have been the omen to what was to come.
The Railway were hosting and decided to initially bring in the boundary on an excellently cut Fairfield Oval. A well-timed block (a shot that is intended to stop the ball from hitting your stumps) would have easily gone to the boundary. After very little deliberation, the leg side boundary was extended towards a few magpies that intimidated Ed later on in the match.
The Match
1 over spells was the tactic whilst having our team on the fence. It didn’t do much help as any ball that was relatively short seemed to get despatched to the leg side for either a 4 or a 6.
The opening partnership for The Railway was looking dangerous, especially after Fargo got hit to the boundary on his fourth delivery. The perfect reply came on the next delivery where he executed a near perfect yorker.
Steady wickets continued to fall including a stumping off Animal’s bowling as well as two excellent catches at long on from Sizzle – shoes are completely overrated! Other highlights included a direct run out by Jay and another catch to Fargo to add to his career tally.
The Railway Hotel scored 275 – not a total we were hoping for but maybe if we can follow their tactic and despatch every delivery to the short side we could be in for a chance! Luckily we had Animal’s Batbar to reset and work out how to tackle the scoreboard.
Opening batters were Oscy and myself. The heat got to us quickly to the point where we stopped trying to sneak in 2s and stuck with walking singles. The heat had affected The Railway too when Oscy and myself gave them chances to get us out. In fact, I believe all our batters gave the opposition chances which lead to a total of 8 dropped catches from The Railway! (tbc: it was actually ten according to them)
Despite the dropped catches, The Railway relied on good scoreboard pressure by bowling in the right areas and making us work hard for our runs. We fell quickly behind on the run rate but a few highlights were Oscy and myself scoring an opening partnership of 50, Sizzle scoring 35NO from 18 deliveries whilst batting at 10 and Paul contributing 21 from 23.
We finished on 180, 96 runs short of the target, but realistically the battle of Nicholson Street could have finished a lot earlier if The Railway didn’t put so much butter on their hands prior to fielding.
Postscript
tbc: Wanted to give a big shout out to Oscar who headed back over the ditch after this match. We’ve loved having him around and hopefully you look us up if/when you decide to come back.