Paranthoiene and Maher lead King’s to a tense victory over the competition leaders

Above: Tom and Paddy, the batting heroes after a brilliant and brave match-winning partnership

Westlake Boys’ High 196/9 in 50 overs

King’s College 197/8 in 48.5 overs

King’s was in deep trouble at 106/6 in the 33^rd over, in pursuit of 197 for victory but with Cory Dickson still out in the middle and both Tom Paranthoiene and Patrick Maher yet to get involved there was always a glimmer of hope.

When Cory had his wickets disturbed at 151/8, a little miracle was needed in the shape of 46 runs in 49 balls with just two wickets remaining.

Paranthoiene and Maher showed huge composure to withstand a relentless Westlake attack in this top-of-the-table clash as they took their team over the line with 7 balls to spare.

A massive contribution from the highly capable but unproven tail-enders secured King’s a morale boosting victory over the team they are likely to contest the Marryatt Cup Final against, as long as both schools continue to win their remaining matches.

Westlake batted first after winning the toss and got off to a decent start. They reached the safety of first drinks at 58/1 and both teams would have felt that they performed reasonably well.

Muhammad Abbas was nursing a groin strain and was taken out of the attack after 4 overs.

Louis Anderson bowled well in his opening burst of 5 overs and was unlucky not to get a wicket.

Seb Macdonald replaced Abbas and broke the opening partnership with his third ball, a fantastic start. Nick Tapper replaced Anderson and in his 6^th over, he removed the dangerous Westlake opening batsman Bevan Jacobs for 43 runs with the score on 74/2.

This was a major breakthrough and King’s would have felt that they could restrict Westlake for a mediocre sub-150 score. Patches of poor fielding saw the opposition middle-order thrive and at second drinks they had reached 128/4.

Stern words at this juncture saw King’s improve their fielding in the last session. Toby Irvine continued to impress with his quality off-spin and Cory Dickson who delayed his introduction into the attack showed his class as he picked up 4 wickets from 6 overs.

Had he come on earlier, Westlake might have struggled to go beyond the 180 mark. He bowled the death overs with Tapper and both were clinical in executing the game plan.

After lunch, King’s opened with Macdonald instead of Abbas. Nathan Robinson continued his good form but threw his wicket away with an aerial drive to the long-on boundary in the 21^st over with his score on 40.

This loss brought the other form batsman Dimithri Gallage to the crease to join Abbas. Just when Abbas was stamping his authority on the game he too needlessly played an aerial drive that led to his demise – 88/3 in the 28^th over.

Achindra Molamure joined Gallage and together took King’s over the 100 run barrier but the former’s dismissal in the 32^nd over saw 3 quick wickets fall over the space of 5 balls as King’s lurched from 106/4 to 106/6.

One of these wickets was the batting king-pin Gallage, who was another batsman guilty of playing an unnecessary aerial drive.

A mini-partnership gave King’s some hope as Dickson and Jeet Bhatia added 26 runs for the 7^th wicket when the latter was dismissed for 11 runs – 132/7 in the 40^th over.

An unlikely victory was a long way off at this stage. King’s needed to conjure another 65 runs with just 3 wickets remaining, but as long as Dickson was still batting there was some hope.

The tail did not have many opportunities to bat this year but the ability was there. The issue was that the RRR was mounting and Westlake felt that they had full control of the game.

They were on high alert in the field and gave very little away. They were raucous in their appeals and frenetic in their fielding, whilst the bowling was disciplined. Would King’s crumble again as they did so many time in the latter part of last season?

Tom Paranthoiene, arguably the most improved player this year strode out to join his skipper and immediately showed that he was ready for a fight, bravely rotating the strike and at times punishing the loose delivery to the boundary.

Together, they took the score to 151 when the skipper had his stumps rattled in the 43^rd over, 47 runs adrift, two wickets remaining and Westlake were in total command.

Patrick Maher joined Paranthoiene and a brave partnership was needed from this pair.

The usually belligerent Maher, blocked out the first three balls he faced before picking up two singles – a very circumspect approach.

In the next six overs this pair ran quick singles and a cluster of two’s dodging run out attempts galore.

Paranthoiene smartly took quick singles to give the strike to the boundary hunter Maher who manufactured two glorious hits in the 46^th over to bring the required runs to 20 from four overs.

The belief was back in the King’s camp and the next two overs produced just 8 runs but more importantly showed unbelievable maturity and minimal panic from these two.

At the end of the 48^th over 12 runs was required off 12 balls.

The first two balls each produced two runs off the bat of Paranthoiene before a single brought Maher to face – 7 runs from victory.

Maher obliged by smashing the next ball over long on for the maximum and the scores were tied.

Victory came with seven balls to spare, as King’s discovered two lower-order batsmen with wonderful skills and more importantly maturity, composure and intelligence to fully understand the situation they were dealing with.

Next week the team travels to Mount Albert with the hope of reversing one of the bizarre losses of the first round.

N Robinson	40	S Macdonald	5
M Abbas	32	D Gallage	20
A Molamure	7	C Dickson	21
N Tapper	0	J Bhatia	11
T Paranthoiene	28 not out	P Maher	26 not out
L Anderson	DNB	T Irvine	DNB

 

M Abbas	4-0-19-0	L Anderson	8-0-32-0
S Macdonald	8-0-34-1	N Tapper	9-0-23-1
T Irvine	10-1-33-1	P Maher	5-0-30-2
C Dickson	6-0-22-4

 King’s win by 2 wickets