Saturday’s result against Mayfield will go down as a brilliant team display that ensured a stunning victory. There were heroes a plenty, but everyone that stepped foot on the pitch for Rosaneri played a vital role in securing the honours.
At this point in the report it must be pointed out for those not present that the pitch was a beast. The track was hard baked with tufty grass and weeds, as well as cracks and holes. To put it mildly, a draw was completely out of the question. It was simply going to be a case of who managed to eek and scrape the most runs.
Mayfield batted first and never really looked comfortable. They lost both openers fairly cheaply, but then a slight recovery saw the home team looking to build a platform for victory. But the 2nd wave bowlers of Stephen Underwood and Nick Shewring soon turned the game back firmly in Rosaneri’s favour by taking 5 wickets between them.
Marcus then came into the attack to take 2 early wickets and Mayfield were reduced to 91 for 9. Captain Underwood then politely eased off the accelerator to give the home team a chance of making a game of it. When the Captain had seen enough he tossed Jim the ball to end the innings, which he duly did with his first ball. A last wicket stand of 29 ensured that Rosaneri had a serious chase on their hands.
With the pitch being so bad anything could have happened, but that was even before we knew that their opening bowlers were lightening fast and very accurate !
Every batsman to a man took to the crease with bravery and commitment. Ben Underwood took a massive blow to the forearm in the first over to a ball that literally took off vertically from a length. The imprint of the seam was visible hours after the game had concluded.
Gbell batted with utter determination and really stood up to the ferocious pace attack, and did a thoroughly professional openers job when the going couldn’t have been any tougher.
The “Run Buddy” combo of Mark Cox and Tony Alfieri both played their biggest innings yet for the club by adding 22 vital runs.
More cameos came and went and the target of 121 crept ever closer. But it basically all boiled down to the last pairing of Stephen Underwood and Steve Shewring. They came together with 36 required for victory and both played very different roles. Underwood dropped anchor and never looked in trouble, while Cuz took the attack to the bowlers and put them under real pressure.
Every ball was eagerly watched by the rest of the team as one mistake or bit of bad luck would have resulted in a defeat. The pressure on the boys in the middle was like having a 12 foot putt to win The Open, or a penalty to win The Champions League.
Steve smashed the winning runs and the relief was enormous. However, this was not the end of the drama as certain players within the home team felt that they had been cheated by the Rosaneri umpiring. Player comments and the smashing of dressing room furniture did sour the end result somewhat.
This truly was a remarkable result in a hostile environment against battle hardened opponents. We can also be totally proud of the result as our umpiring is always honest and should never be brought into question. In a similar grand stand finish last year, Jim was given out LBW just one run short of the Ockbrook & Borrowash total.
Please do not let the unsavory side of proceedings over shadow a brilliant day in the history of Rosaneri Cricket Club. Well done to all concerned.