So last night was more like Final CC v Wee Hamish McDiddy rather than The Colts, such was the dominance of the not so wee scotsman. It was very reminiscent of the night two years ago, when Hamish led The Diddymen out of trouble too. We lost the toss and were asked to bowl with Diddy Dave and Wee Hamish opening up. The first over was tight from Diddy and Hamish removed one of their openers with his first ball.
The other opener then also departed run out from a bad call. This unfortunately let in Final’s star player, Tariq, who as usual looked assured stroking the ball around. Our fielding was also mostly on the mark. We hit the stumps 4 times at the keepers end but no decisions were given in our favour. One was a particularly bad decision, made worse as it would have run Tariq out. Three of their batsman reached 25 and with another run out this let Tariq back in at the end. However our bowling good throughout, I don’t think we had a single wide throughout the innings, there were a few no balls though, one being a might harsh for a lifting delivery. So whilst we only took three wickets, we kept them down to 129 for 3, a reasonable, but gettable total.
Hamish and Diddy opened the batting and were moving confidently through the opening overs, with Hamish in particularly fine form hitting the back wall twice with hammered straight drives. Sadly on 24, and hitting the sidewall which would have taken him to retirement, he sent Diddy back and left him stranded. I went in three and Hamish reached his 25 with his next shot. Harry “Hedge” Cott then joined me and couldn’t resist a tempting flighted delivery and was stumped by a mile. Dickie “Murphy” Mint was next in and we started to look comfortable having put on 30, when I tried to run a leg side wide that conveniently came straight off the back wall to the keeper to leave me easily run out. When Sid “Stuart” Short, our stand in keeper for the evening, was bowled almost immediately and then Dickie Mint walked across his stumps and was triggered LBW, it really looked like we had just thrown our chances of the double. We were 77 for 5, but it was only the 8th over. This is where Wee Hamish turned the game single handed. Dickie Mint called well as the non-striking runner and as each over ticked by we just kept ahead of the required run rate. With less than 10 required and in the 11th over, Final had one last chance to run out Hamish, but flunked it, when Dickie ran out of puff. However, we only needed 7 off the last over, which were comfortably taken. Hamish ended on 78 not out, an heroic innings.
Hamish was clearly the man of the match. In the end Final got what they deserved for more or less cheating there way to a defendable total.
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