The Rollers made it three wins from three games on Sunday with a clinical and professional display against the Coastal Strikers in a very windy Brackenfell.
Whereas the victory against Groot Drak a few weeks ago was all down to the batsmen, yesterday was a master-class performance from the bowlers and fielders, especially in the first 15 overs when we all but wrapped the game up.
But it looked a bit worrying at one stage. Asked to bat first, the Rollers got off to a slow start as Ryan Cooper and Andrew Young struggled to come to terms with the pace of the wicket.
After playing and missing an insane amount of times, Ryan finally managed to get his bat close enough to the ball to knick it behind, trudging back to the stands with only 18 to his name.
Daryn Geldenhuys came in at three and, after being dropped an absolute sitter at midwicket, played some great shots before being caught for 22; followed soon after by Nicky Rheeder, who has the dubious honour of having chalked up the first duck of the season.
Youngie looked far from his best, but managed to grind out 28 valuable runs before he fell with the score on 83 – one of Riaan van Eeden’s four victims on the day. And Youngie was still walking off the field when he was joined by Hannes Engelbrecht, bowled around his legs for a second-ball duck.
When Nico Rheeder (7) was caught with the score on 95 the Rollers were in serious trouble, but Cornell Keulder and Hannes Carlson then set about getting us to some sort of meaningful total, with Nellie eventually out for 22.
Casper (23 not out) did a great job batting with the ‘tail’ of Jacques Laubscher, Neville Cooper and Hannes Moore as we added 44 runs for the last three wickets to get to an okay-ish 155.
So work to be done with the ball, and the fielders sure played their part as well. Youngie immediately found a good line and length to finish with 1/16 in his five overs, while Nellie was bowling at blistering pace from the other end, breaking toes and trimming nose hairs in his five-over spell which yielded 2/9.
And if the Strikers thought that was the worst seen off, they were horribly mistaken. Kepler came on and took a wicket in his first over – a great leg-side catch by Casper – and then proceeded to bowl three consecutive maidens for incredible figures of 5-3-4-2.
Casper and Ryan then came on to grab a wicket apiece as the hosts finished on 122/7 to hand the Rollers a 32-run win – and a 3-2 lead in head-to-heads between the two sides.
As always, a nice drinks session was had with the Strikers afterwards (three double brandy and cokes for R40!), with Scooter making it even better with his famous garlic steaks. And we even managed to get a visit from our long-lost comrade Trevor White!
So one more game this year, on December 11 against those tosspots at Edgemead. If there is one game I want to win this season it is that one please.
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