On Sunday, 2nd November, we played our round four game against Nepean at Village Oval.
We lost the toss and were sent in to bat. Our openers got us off to a good start before we unfortunately lost our first wicket in the 9th over. Atti came in at number three and helped us build a strong position alongside Jack, who contributed another solid knock of 38.
We lost a few wickets in the middle order, but Atti’s composed batting ensured the runs kept ticking over. He reached his maiden rep fifty, finishing on 51 not out with a fantastic innings. Tim, who came in at number nine, joined Atti at the crease and scored a quickfire 27 off 24 balls (not out), including a huge six. Their partnership helped us reach a total of 176, which was a great recovery after looking like we might fall well short of that mark.
Defending 176 runs, early wickets were going to be super important for us to get the win.
A tight opening spell of bowling from Oli and Virat kept Nepean to just 16 runs from six overs – six runs behind us at the same stage of the game.
Nepean had moved its score to 32 runs in the 10th over when Liam created our first chance of a wicket. Agastya Gupta hit the ball in the air to mid-off, but, unfortunately, the catch was dropped. While we couldn’t get Agastya out, a wicket wasn’t far away.
Tom struck in the next over, removing Nepean’s other opening batter, Samuel Robinson, caught by Atti at mid-wicket for 9 runs.
Leo grabbed a great low catch off the bowling of Felix in the 17th over to dismiss Nepean’s number three, Devansh Brahmbatt, for 11.
Nepean was 2/99 at drinks, needing another 78 runs to win. Desperate for a wicket, we turned to our opening bowlers to get the breakthrough. Sadly, we couldn’t get a wicket and Nepean moved quickly to 2/144 from 27 overs.
Searching for a miracle, Atti brought himself on to bowl and immediately trapped Nepean’s captain, Austin Vashisth, in front for a run-a-ball 35. It was the last time we’d celebrate with Nepean quickly scoring the remaining 33 runs it needed and wrapping up a 7-wicket win with 8.2 overs left.
We host Inner West Harbour on Sunday in a must-win game for us.
By Ollie Cooper and Liam Pallister