By R. Sivasubramaniam
05 May 08. It looks like the 1st of May will in future be linked in the hearts of cricketers with the D’Almeida & A P Rajah Shield match. As usual the Non-Benders ‘won’ the toss – there was some fancy ‘tossing’ by Dave, who claimed that he won the toss and elected to bat. The Combined Schools team, influenced by the traditional magnanimity of the Non-Benders who presented the boys with a match shirt, accepted the verdict and took to the field under a clear blue sky.
With the internationally-acclaimed umpire Sarika Prasad and the mighty Mike Grice leading the way, the schoolboys led by Anish Param took to the field. The Non-Benders openers Mike Mehaffey and Sandeep Puri soon followed and the battle was joined in earnest with Jayanth Ganapathi opening the bowling from the Pavilion end. Off the fourth ball, Mike played an elegant drive which beat the fielders all the way to the fence. He took a single off the last ball and one had the distinct impression that he wanted to bat all day and from both ends (I don’t want to speculate on Sandeep’s thoughts!). Abhijit Shukla opening from the softball ground end bowled a decent line; two of his first four overs were maidens!
The openers soon settled down and the runs were coming rather freely against the medium pacers. After 10 overs, skipper Anish took over from Jayanth but after one over, he switched ends and off his fourth ball, he bowled Sandeep after the openers had put on 48, Sandeep’s contribution being 30 in 12.4 overs at a rate of almost 4 an over.
Buoyed by the success, Anish brought on Rezza Gaznavi (who was playing his first match for Combined Schools) from the Pavilion end. Rezza’s fourth ball had Shazib Pervaiz caught by Tan Wee Keng at long on. With a wicket in his first over, Rezza was bowling his leggies with a fine loop, getting the ball to turn and bounce and it was clear that he was going to be a thorn in the side of the Non-Benders. The batsmen, however did not waste any wayward delivery. David Jones in particular feasting himself to two fours and a six.
Anish had settled into a groove and in his fifth over had the well set Mike Mehaffey adjudged lbw. Mike had batted for 80 minutes for his 29 runs. Ex-Singapore skipper Kiran Deshpande (one of two ex-Captains in the side) was kept quiet until he was bowled by Rezza. David Jones who was in fine form was joined by Suresh Shanker and the two SCC stalwarts were still there at lunch which was taken with the score on 122-4 off 29 overs.
Whether it was the pep talk given by the coach Goh Swee Heng or the curry served by the Non-Benders, one will never really know but the boys returned determined to get the remaining wickets quickly. Suresh was the first to go, run out after scoring 34 off 30 balls. The next to go was the prize wicket of David Jones who fell to Jayanth, brilliantly caught by Prem Dadlani. David had scored 69 off 74 balls. Anish and Rezza then ran through the tail and the Non-Benders were all out for 192 in 49.5 overs. Rezza Gaznavi, in his first match, had the excellent figures of 10.5–2–39– 5 and he was well supported by Anish (16– 3–62-3).
Anish opened the batting with Adhir Menon and they were batting well, when Adhir was ‘foxed’ by the wily ex-skipper Stacey Muruthi, who showed that whilst the ball may not be spinning as much as it used to, he had not lost all the cunning, conceding only 13 runs and not conceding a boundary! At tea, the Schoolboys were 37-1 in 8 overs.
After tea, Anish and Prem started off watchfully but, running skilfully between the wickets and despatching the bad ones, put on 134 runs for the second wicket in exactly 22 overs at a shade over a run a ball when Prem was bowled by Sandeep Puri to be three runs short of a well deserved 50!
Non-Benders skipper David Robertson tried 8 bowlers in an effort to shift Anish and eventually put himself on but Anish hit the first he received for a 6 to record his first century (and the first century for a long time) against the Non-Benders. Anish, who scored the winning run, was 116 not out (89 balls, 9 fours, 6 sixes). Timothy Singham was 5 not out. The Singapore Combined Schools won by 8 wickets and now lead 9 – 8 in the series, not having lost a game since 1996. The remaining games were drawn.
For his unbeaten 116 Anish Param (in his last match) won the Best Schoolboy Award but do spare a thought for Rezza, who took 5 wickets on debut.
Scorecard |
