Pirates of the St Lawrence versus West Island Tigers
Saturday 5th of September 2015
The Candy Fields, Mont-Saint-Hilaire
Match type: 45 overs per side (10 wickets)
Result: West Island Tigers won by 10 runs

West Island Tigers Innings

Extras 13 (Byes 0, Leg Byes 1, No Balls 0, Wides 12)
Total 250 all out in 44.1 overs

Pirates of the Saint-Lawrence Innings

Extras 44 (Byes 16, Leg Byes 1, No Balls 2, Wides 25)
Total 240 all out in 42.1 overs

This is longer than the average report. But since it was longer than the average day (Pirates spent 12 hours getting the ground ready, playing the game, and taking it down again), that seems fair enough, especially as it was a good day’s cricket. Nearly 500 runs, 22 wickets, and a close finish.

Bucolic surroundings and a hot day added to the atmosphere. Farm workers spent the day threshing and baling the area around the ground, finding (that is to say, destroying) the odd lost ball as they went about their labour.

As a result of a late change, Pirates faced a combined West Island Tigers/McGill University team (referred to as Tigers for convenience in this report). When the captains met to agree rules and terms, Maninder, captaining Tigers, said he thought he had managed to assemble a pretty good team for the day. And he was right.

Tigers batted first, and it was clear that the farm workers were not the only ones making hay while the sun shone. Tigers took off at an extraordinary run rate, with Rajendran flaying balls to the boundary without ever using the middle of the bat but employing more edges than a threepenny bit. Bell, captaining Pirates, reassembled his field with obscure positions such as deep third man and fly-gully to try to stem the onslaught. But Tigers thrashed away to good effect. Two difficult high catches were put down. The hot weather had contributed to a smooth and fast outfield, and confident mishits were easily reaching the boundary, as the maxim “if you’re going to flash, flash hard” paid dividends.

Just before drinks, Tigers were 176-1. Historians were starting to wonder whether a 300-plus total had ever been completed at Candy Fields. And then things started to change.

Florence finally got his reward in the last over of a Herculean spell as Riaz caught Arhum to break a stand of 136. And then a change to spin brought results at last for Pirates. A caught-behind, and then an apparently-certain six caught on the boundary at cow corner. Four wickets for Carter; three catches for Rodmell; two stumpings and a catch for Lal. If Pirates could get the opponents all out and prevent them from using their overs, then there was a game to be had after all. Bell mopped up most of the tail by forcing close catches; and Levin, after an uncertain start, took the tenth wicket with a clean bowled, leaving Riaz to deal with the last-man-stand with a sharply-taken caught-and-bowled.

So Tigers had scored 250, which looked like a manageable target for Pirates on a batter-friendly pitch. But Tigers began strongly again, with an opening spell from Fezal that emphasised pace over accuracy but which still had lethal effect (he recorded four wides, two wickets, and several bruises to the Pirates’ top order in his first three overs).

But an elegantly measured innings from Florence, combined with some targeted aggression from Bell to keep the run rate up, seemed to set up a strong position. So the Pirates waiting under the tent kept saying, “Well, as long as these two can keep it up, we should be home and dry.”

But wickets kept falling, and “these two” were never the same. Florence (49), Bell (56), Woodall (41) looked as though they could fulfil the role until they went to the change bowlers. Riaz and Quigley looked as though they might still steer Pirates to victory, until Farrukh fell to another of the in-swinging yorkers that had characterised Tigers’ early attack and Quigley went to one of those miracle catches that still has people wondering what actually happened.

So we went from the sublime to the ridiculous. The last stand was maintained by Bhawalkar (who was injured from his earlier bowling and required a runner) and Carter (who, without wishing to take anything away from his excellent bowling earlier in the day, is not noted for his speed between the wickets). On the other hand, Lal, acting as runner for Bhawalkar, showed such enthusiasm that on one ball he completed three runs plus one short while Carter remained rooted to the spot, Tigers missed three run-out chances in ten seconds, and the Benny Hill theme played in the background.

Pirates ran out of luck and out of wickets 11 runs short. But it was a simply excellent game of cricket.