We lost our cricket match this weekend from an almost-impossible-to-lose position ….

This is Ninth Grade, though, and all sorts of funny things occur.  It’s all against a background of all Australian cricketers being caught up in mourning the untimely death of Phillip Hughes.  A freak accident, and much has been written about it.  Personally, I think the best article was this one:

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/nov/27/cricket-naked-aggression-calm-down-phillip-hughes-death

We played StMarys Leagues CC this Saturday, and the two teams met in the middle for a minute’s silence as tribute.

My team then went on to fail to defend our total (from the previous week) of 172.  SMLCC only had ten men, and we had them down to the last wicket at 8/108.  However a tremendous last-wicket stand allowed them to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.  It was achieved by just sensible batting, taking no chances, and just inching towrds victory.  I was also sad that our captain didn’t give me a chance to bowl: we had medium/fast bowlers from both ends for all of the afternoon, and giving my loopy leg-breaks a chance might just have upset the batsmen’s concentration and reaped the one wicket reward that we needed.

I suspect that the problem was that a certain character from our club turned up to watch and said that it was clearly sensible to bowl a slow bowler, even one of doubtful ability.  No chance, after that statement ….