It’s not the worst state we’ve ever played in, but it was also a long way from the best as the Rollers took to the field against Somerset-West on Sunday – the day after Cornell Keulder’s wedding.
What happened at the wedding is best left unsaid, and for 90% of the match at Radloff Park it was pretty much the same, though we showed some great fight towards the end of both innings to ‘only’ lose by two wickets’.
We should have known it would be a bad day out when, by 10am, we still only had nine players for the game. Actually it was more like eight-and-a-half given the state Hannes Carlson rocked up in, though, as so many times before, he showed that the state of his liver never affects his bowling. In fact, it sometimes even enhances it.
Such was the disarray the Rollers showed up in that we left the usual ‘lotto’ system and just assigned people a batting spot in the order in which they arrived at the field. Casper got number 11, at 12h45 (starting time 12).
Fortunately Neville Cooper won the toss and kept most of us out of the heat early on, though the start didn’t really reflect that advantage.
Francois Siebrits was run out early on, and of the top six batsmen, only one managed double figures – Michael van Dewenter seemingly batting on a completely different pitch to us as he pinged everything off the middle, including a leg-glance which resulted in a very sharp catch at short-leg.
Then, enter the experience of Jacques Laubscher, who brought some stability to the batting with the argument of ‘even if I don’t score a lot, I’m going to keep you in the sun all day’.
And he eventually found a willing partner in Dewald Human who, after a few swings and misses, finally got stuck into the bowling. He smashed two huge sixes and five fours in an unbeaten 38 to help the Rollers set some sort of a target, 118.
Dewald and Ryan Cooper put the breaks on in the early overs, with the latter getting a wicket in his first over to provide some hope. However, a stubborn partnership put the hosts back in control, with the lanky Ian looking particularly threatening in smashing Mike for a six and four in his only over.
Once again, Scooter (7-0-21-1) proved the turning point as he bamboozled the aforementioned Ian to such an extent that the batsman started laughing at himself for his inability to get the ball off the square.
Casper then worked his magic, picking up two wickets to put the cat amongst the pigeons, before Tim Sant and his leg-spinners further compounded Somerset-West’s misery, picking up two wickets to leave them reeling.
Ryan took another wicket before a run-out really had the home side in a mess, but the somewhat out-of-shape Gerrie held the innings together well to eventually steer them to a two-wicket win.
By this time most of the Rollers – NOT George Kamfer – had gotten over the rigours of the night before and proudly took their place in the fines session, where we at least managed to regain some respectability.
So next game this Sunday against Constantia at Uitsig, and then two more to go.
BATTING Tim Sant 3 Francois Siebrits 4 Michael van Dewenter 15 (2×4) Neville Cooper 7 (1×4) Ryan Cooper 7 Francois Guest 8 (2×4) Jacques Laubscher 15* (1×4) Hwlgard Truter 3 George Kamfer 2 Dewald Human 38* (2×6, 5×4)
Extras 14 TOTAL: 117/8
BOWLING Dewald Human 3-1-4-0 Ryan Cooper 6.2-0-29-2 Michael van Dewenter 1-0-10-1 Hannes Carlson 7-1-29-2 Jacques Laubscher 7-0-21-1 Tim Sant 4-1-16-1