The Rollers embarked on their second Wellington Sixes this past weekend and, as Nico Rheeder pointed out, the organizers knew exactly how to nullify our strong team.
Boasting young guns like Louis Pretorius and Cornell Keulder, clever cricketers like Nicky Rheeder and Ryan Cooper, and boasting the experience of Nico Rheeder and Neville Cooper, the Rollers travelled to the Boland in a confident frame of mind.
And it all started well enough in the opening game against a very strong Edgemead side. They batted first and posted a very competitive 60 in their five overs, despite some fine bowling from Cornell and Nicky.
However, it proved and easy enough target to chase down as Ryan and Louis put on a solid opening wicket stand, before Neville came in and smashed 15 off four balls to make it safe.
Then the problem. With two-and-a-half hours between games, the Rollers headed on down to the bottle store for some beer – or a 5L Dry White papsak in Slang’s case.
The result? A very shaky performance against Brand House in the second game, and ultimately our elimination from the tournament.
We batted first and posted 62, thanks in large to Louis’ 40-odd, which included three massive sixes. The rest, however, contributed very little. Neville was run out with facing a ball, while Slang also went for a duck.
Still, 62 was very defendable, but not the way we bowled. Louis, bless his drunken soul, went from hero to zero with a …. below par … second-last over, where they scored 22.
Slang bamboozled the batsmen in the final over, but four runs was never going to be enough to defend.
Still, a good day out in the sun ended with some lovely hard tack in the local restaurant.
Some valuable lessons learnt, but whether they will be implemented next time remains to be seen.