Day 9 - Match day 3

We were playing against St Anthony’s College in Kandy that was a short drive from our hotel. As was becoming a tradition on this tour we proceeded to lose the toss and the opposition chose to bat first. 

Their opening batsman proved to be an outstanding cricketer who demonstrated a superb range of shots with very little opportunity given to us to remove him. He scored 117 runs from 84 balls and the only chance we had to get him out was at 80 but sadly was dropped. We later found out that he was part of the Sri Lankan pathway programme, which came as no surprise after watching him play.

The first wicket came from the bowling of Will Hale when he got the ball to move off the seam and the batsman nicked it as it when through to Jimmy behind the stumps who took a good catch. The next batsman in didn’t last too long as Alex Banhidai removed him after he faced just 10 balls and scored 7 runs. It was starting to look promising as Ciaran Whatmore removed their 4th batsman as Jimmy once again took a good catch.

The next batsman in settled in to a good partnership with the opening batsman who was ticking the score along nicely. It took an excellent ball from Matt Fisk to bowl him around his legs after he had scored 27 from 33 balls. Matt struck again quickly as the batsman tried to go big on a shot back over the Matt’s head but Adam Cooper came off the boundary to take an excellent catch. 

We felt like the game was turning in our favour at this point but it was then we realised that St Anthony’s had batting right the way down the order. As batsman 7 came in and smashed 69 runs from just 49 balls, which included 9 4’s and a couple of 6’s but we finally got him from the bowling of Ben Seary and a relatively routine catch for Alex Peirson. 

Ciaran Whatmore then came in to the attack and cleaned up their last two batsman as Adam Cooper once again took a good catch on the boundary. The outstanding bowler for the match was Matt Fisk with figures of 33 runs from 8 overs and picking up 2 wickets. The total of 300 was going to be a big ask but fueled by a good lunch we felt ready for the challenge.

The batting was opened by Alex Peirson and Benjy Furrer. It wasn’t the start we were looking for when AP was removed on the 3rd ball as he was caught out for a duck. However, we were still confident as Will Dommett came in to bat on what was a quick outfield. Will and Benjy started to work well together putting a nice partnership before Will was bowled out for 17 runs and Benjy followed shortly after with 20 runs from 23 balls.

This was proving to be a far cry from our best batting performance and the Kandy heat wasn’t helping us. Ben Seary spent longer walking to the wicket than he spent at it as he was sent back for a golden duck and the match was slipping away from us very quickly. However, up stepped Matt Fisk and he was determined to make life difficult for the fielding team. Mr Hale had sent Matt in to “hang around and bat the overs”, which he applied himself well facing 59 balls and scoring 31 runs before he was caught out. 

Charlie Smith took to the crease next and was left bemused after 5 balls when he was stumped out. Sadly he now knows the rule about having to have part of your foot behind the line as the line belongs to the umpire and his finger was raised. Ciaran Whatmore was sadly more of a bowler than batsman today as he joined Ben Seary in the Golden Duck club.

Alex Banhidai was hanging around and working hard to save our reputation as he stuck it out for 48 balls. It was proving tough for him as others kept falling around him as he made his way to 12 runs before we ran out of batsmen! Will Hale offered us a glimmer of hope when he went the spin bowler bludgeoning 2 massive 6’s and a strike rate of 300 before he was caught after going for another big shot and not quite timing it right. 

Jimmy Tye and Henry David offered little resistance as we limped to 115 all out and losing the match by 185 runs. This team proved to be a couple of levels above our previous opposition and the opening batsman was a class act and was awarded man of the match.