Rain revises target as ACC 1sts win out over Umzinto

AMANZIMTOTI Cricket Club’s (ACC) first team travelled down to Umzinto on Sunday, 17 January.

On arrival they discovered a water-logged pitch, which was totally unplayable.

Desi and Rex then started the negotiations to try and get the game moved to the Toti Oval. Their chairman agreed, on condition that the KZN president sanctioned the move and that the return fixture would be played in Umzinto. Phone calls, WhatsApp and a few SMSes got the president up early and he agreed to the move. It was amazing to see how many helpers Rex had to get the pitch rolled and paint up the two batting creases.

The game started at 10.30am, 90 minutes late. It was reduced from 50 overs to 40 overs each side.

Jarred finally won a toss and put Umzinto into bat. Muggy and overcast conditions caused the ball to swing alarmingly. The Umzinto batsmen never really came to terms with the ball moving around so much and were bowled out for 112 in the 34th over.

Bevis ‘The Liverpool Kid’ Prismal declared before the game that the team had to win the toss, roll Umzinto for a small total and then get the required runs before 3 o’ clock so that he could watch Liverpool play Man United. He bowled like a man possessed, taking five wickets for 13 runs in 4.4 overs. Unfortunately for him, Liverpool let him down once again as they were well beaten by United, with Bevis unhappily watching. Jordan, Jay-Jay and Justin all chipped in with wickets and good bowling performances.

Three overs into ACC’s innings, a light shower caused the pitch to become a little more unpredictable with the ball still swinging alarmingly. ACC’s batsmen battled to find runs without losing their wickets. The rain delay caused another revision in the number of overs to be bowled. The calculations between Duckworth and Lewis reduced the target to 88 runs off 31 overs. With wickets falling at regular intervals, ACC’s batters finally reached the target in the 24th over for the loss of seven wickets. Justin ended the game scoring two sixes to finish with 18 runs to his name. James, Robin and Desi all chipped in with decent starts but unfortunately none of them managed to overcome some good bowling in difficult batting conditions. Duckworth and Lewis had left before the game finished, and the collective brains-trust used fingers, toes and a few other instruments to try and calculate if ACC had achieved the bonus point.

Luckily someone suggested using a cell phone to do the calculation and it appears that ACC just managed to sneak in with the extra point for reaching the target inside 25 overs.

Next Sunday sees the first team again at home, this time against Railways.